I know this may sound silly....but can you pray for King?
A couple months ago, back in late June when our neighbors (behind us) moved in, they did a ton of work clearing out brush & stuff. A few days after they did that, King was covered up in big ticks. We pulled them all off of him, shampooed him w/ flea & tick shampoo, put on a flea & tick collar, and put a dose of the Frontline stuff on him. (we had 1 last dose of it at the time, thank goodness!) Within a week, we quit seeing ANY ticks on him at all. We were happy to see them gone & felt like the brush-clearing must've been what started it all because our backyard (where King lives) backs up to the yard where they cleared out so much stuff. I guess they were living in all that mess & when their habitat was disturbed, they went haywire. We have continued treating him all summer even though we have not seen any more ticks on him since that first week, and trust me, we've checked him extensively almost daily up until a week or two ago when we quit being so obsessive about it.
Fast forward to today. When we got home from church, he didn't come greet us at the fence like he usually does. However, he's nearly 10 years old & is 1/2 crippled anyway, so once in a while, he doesn't jump up & run to the fence....but it still bothered me, so I went to check on him. Larry followed me & I quickly discovered (while petting him) that he was covered up in ticks again! Larry & I sat there & pulled tick after tick after tick off of him. Immediately, we decided to re-treat him & the yard. We went inside & changed clothes & grabbed a quick bite before going out (all of us--kids included) to bathe him. We used about 4 layers of the shampoo, covered every inch of his body & found (seriously) at least a hundred more ticks--babies & big fat adults. It got to the point that I wanted to throw my hands up & say "forget it..there's too many." We pulled so many off that his fur was bloody in places & our hands were bloody when we came in. On his chest, there are several lumps that look like infected bites. Before we finished bathing him, Larry put tick poison stuff all over the back yard (dog-safe stuff) & afterward, we put a new collar on him.
As Larry & I sat there pulling off ticks, he whispered to me "you know, this many ticks could kill him...I hope we found them soon enough." We sat there, silently pulling off ticks, praying that he will be OK.
King has his vet check-up on Tuesday afternoon, so I guess the doc can give us some idea of how good or bad things look. We're really worried about the poor old dog. We haven't said anything to the kids about how bad this could possibly be. No need to worry them if there's nothing to worry about. But if there is a chance he could be seriously ill or die from this, it would just kill them. They're so attached to the big fluff-ball & it would break their hearts (& ours!) to lose him!
1 comment:
Oohhh, this breaks my heart. You King is beautiful. I am so sad about the ticks. That is horrible. I really will say a prayer. I understand the importance of the family dog. They are a part of the family.
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