Dog Days

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You might think that by using the phrase "dog days" I mean to invoke long lazy summer days, humidity, swimming, cold lemonade... but no, I really mean dog days, as in, panting, shedding, muddy critters.  The ones who won't rest if your kitchen floor is too clean.  The ones who bark at strangers... and your neighbors, too.

We've had unnatural amounts of rain alternating with heat, and the flea population exploded.  This has never happened before, but we actually had fleas in the feed room in the barn.  I bombed it three times, and still they were jumping on our ankles when we went in the feed room.  It almost made me think twice and about feeding the animals.

Anyway, this problem could not be solved by a few squirts of flea spray for the dogs and barn cats.  I kept washing the dog beds and bathing the dogs (who are restricted to the kitchen when inside), but I lived in terror of a flea infestation in the house.  If you have ever had fleas in a house, you'll know that having a poltergeist doesn't look too bad by comparison.  Having a troublesome ghost break a few glasses would be vastly preferable to being eaten alive from the ankles up.

I have never had fleas infest my house, thank goodness, but a realtor once showed me a house that was full of fleas.  I should have taken my cue from the fact that the floor was jacked up in places with rusty bottle jacks (yes, I mean the kind of  jack you would use for a car).  However, being young and foolish, I went inside the old house.  I almost had to get a transfusion later to reverse the blood loss.  

But I digress.  So I had this problem, the fleas on the pets I mean, but as a teacher who is not making money in the summer I had to solve the problem in an economical way.  In the end I went to Costco and purchased their house brand of spot-on flea treatment: All the chemical potency of a name brand for half the price.  $60 later, the animals are flea free.  

How smugly I congratulated myself on solving what I thought was the biggest canine challenge of the summer!  Alas, pride goeth before a fall.  Yesterday, I called our small dogs in from the yard.  Our normally perky little Dachshund dragged up the steps of the deck, and I noticed that one entire side of his face was swollen. Picking him up, it was easy to spot the source of the problem: Two little fang holes on the top of his pointy nose, which apparently he had stuck somewhere it didn't belong.  

As everyone who has ever lived in the country with dogs knows, when it comes to dog vs. snake, the snake almost always wins.  Not in the sense that the bite is often fatal, mind you-- NO-- that would be too quick and economical. The snake wins by injecting chaos and expense: There's the automatic $300 vet bill, the moaning children, and the disruption to the day... and the further evidence of why they call this time the "dog days" of summer.  When you live with dogs, truly your summer is not your own!