Flea-Bitten Beasts

Yesterday at the park, a woman let her whippet off leash as she entered the park, but before she got to the fenced dog area. For those of you who don't know, a whippet is very similar to a greyhound, just smaller, and similar to greyhounds, they love to run. As the woman and her whippet approached the dog area, the dog ran up to the fence to say hi to our dogs. Suka got excited and ran toward the fence to say hi also. He must have startled the whippet a little because the whippet took off sideways at a full sprint. Suka followed playfully. The fenced dog park area is just a big circular fenced area and the whippet started sprinting around and around the outside of the fence with Suka chasing from the inside. Harvey thought it was pretty cool, so he chased also. Trying to follow the whippet in his path around the fence, Shaun and I got dizzy. Oh, boy was he fast! And we were all laughing so hard! Finally, a chunky little bull dog cut Harvey off, sending him head over tail, and starting a fight that distracted Suka from his chasing and the Whippet lost interest and wandered off to another part of the park.

I'm really glad they had so much fun, because sadly that was their last trip to that park. A couple hours after returning home, we found fleas. Fleas! All over Suka's belly. We immediately took them outside and applied our frontline medication. The instructions say to apply it once a month. The vet told us to apply it every 6 weeks. It had been 5 weeks since our last application, so I think i'm going to stick with the instructions on the box. Poor, poor dogs! I feel so bad for them. Since our wretched discovery, they have been banned from the house, confined and quarantined to the small patio upstairs. We have been cleansing the house and washing everything in hot water. Today, Suka's number of fleas has decreased significantly, and I really can't tell if Harvey has any or not since his hair is so thick. I went after Suka with the tweezers and pulled off 7 and drowned them in a cup of bleach water, then flushed them down the toilet just in case. Hopefully the frontline will do the trick fast and furious, but since their skin has been so dry from their poor diet, i'm afraid it will take a couple days, and probably a little longer than the instructions say.

Poor guys. I feel bad for them sleeping out there on the porch, but hell if they're getting in my bed with fleas!