So I'm changing the baby's diaper around 7am and what the heck? There is a flea on my child's head. EW! I pick it off. Gross. Hour later, another diaper change and there is another flea on my baby!!!! So disgusted. What the heck?? I just gave our dogs their normal flea meds about a week ago so what gives? I check out the dogs anyway b/c they are obviously coming from somewhere...... and I see that my dogs are completely and totally covered in fleas and flea eggs! How did this happen?!!!
Ugh. I put the babe down for his nap and decide to buzz the dogs.
I start with our little guy b/c he's more difficult. The toddler is playing with his toys, sort-of interested b/c of the clippers, but not really. All is going fine. Dog one - I give up on getting him perfect bc there's just hair every where, he's too squirmy and by this point, the toddler is climbing all over me. And he's starting to get interested in the dog hair piled up on the floor. Dog one's fleas aren't so bad after all. Dog two's turn, our Golden Retriever. We usually keep her hair super short b/c it's easier, cleaner and she is just more active with short hair but for whatever reason, we decided to let her hair grow out this "winter" (it's So Cal. It's not winter). So maybe that's why she got fleas, they were just hiding deep in her long hair. Gross. Start shaving and they are E-VER-Y-WHERE. It seriously makes me itch just writing this. So now I've got this fairly large pile of dog hair on the ground (I did make a couple trips to throw some away but Golden's have a lot of hair). Flea and flea egg infested, gross dog hair. And of course, the toddler thinks it looks too fun to ignore any longer. So he comes over and jumps in and runs through the pile! Grabs it, throws it, runs through the room..... it's all over the place. Gross, flea and flea egg infested, disgusting hair is now getting all over the living room and dining room and oh fun, he heads for the office!
So I'm trying to wrangle my toddler, I get his pj's off (fleece pj's so the hair was just stuck to them in clumps) and somehow manage to distract him long enough to finish buzzing the dog's hair. I toss the dogs outside so I can clean and vacuum up the mess. But not before the toddler starts throwing our couch pillows into the explosion of dog hair. Yay!! Little by little, I'm vacuuming and removing items to our laundry room to the growing pile of items I need to wash that now has flea/flea egg infested dog hair all over them. Finally get it all cleaned up, gross hair bagged up & tossed out in the trash, vacuum emptied and now I need to bathe the dogs.
I get the dogs in the bathroom - they pretty much clawed the carpet as I pulled them in there b/c they knew what was coming and wanted no part of it. Toddler is excited for doggie baths so he pulls off his diaper and hops in the tub. I get in the tub and pull in one dog and of course, the babe wakes up. So I run over to grab him but my tank top is still covered in gross hair so I hold him out in front of me so he doesn't get the gross hair, I put him in his bouncer in the doorway and get back in the tub. Little dog washed and out pretty quickly. That was easy(ish).
Dog two. The big dog. The one covered in fleas. Gross. Get her in the tub and start washing. Toddler gets the soap and dumps about half of the full bottle (how did he grab that and twist the top so fast?!?!) on the dog and in the gross flea water. Oh and he starts sitting down and playing in the gross flea/flea egg water. It's so disgusting. I'm such a neat freak and germ freak that my skin was just crawling. It still is. The water was SO GROSS!! Whatever. So I have the dog covered in soap and my phone alarm goes off. A reminder I had set. It's sitting on the desk in the other room and vibrating and making it's alarm sound and it is freaking out the little dog. So little dog is barking his head off. It's freaking out the big dog so the big dog jumps out of the tub and I have to get out and pick her up to get her back in the tub. Soapy, drenched bathroom floor now. Fun. Toddler his whining b/c he wants to hold the shower head. And yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy!! The drain gets clogged!
I don't know why but the little drain piece that is normally so easy to pull out won't budge more than an inch up (that probably makes no sense). So I'm pulling and twisting and can't get the drain stopper thing out. So I just have to sit there and hold it up to get all the gross water to drain at a reasonable speed so I can rinse off the big dog and get this over with. Finally it drains. I get her rinsed and set her free. Run out to turn off my alarm that has been annoyingly ringing all this time. Then it's time to shower myself and disinfect my flea-water bathing child.
A lovely, nice luke-warm shower.
That was my morning. It was lunch time by the end of that whole scene. Think you want kids and animals?? Think again, my friend.
Did you know that flea eggs can lie around in your carpet, dormant for MONTHS? Did you know that the vibrations from a vacuum can induce them to HATCH?
ReplyDeleteI learned all that the hard way. You need flea stuff. Not the stuff that comes from the pet store. You need the stuff that comes from the vet that you squirt onto their backs...that way it will get spread all over the house and kill those damn dormant eggs.
Yeah that's what we use.... it's from the vet. It's Frontline Plus. I've put it on them twice now and I really hope it does the trick. Our toddler had about 20 flea bites on his back yesterday from his flea-hair-pile-jumping escapade :( I haven't seen any fleas since so I'm hoping it's the end of it, or at least that they are on the way out. I'm surprised they got so bad this winter! Our backyard even froze a couple times this year. Isn't that supposed to kill them when the ground freezes?
DeleteI'm laughing, but totally sympathetic. We don't have dogs, but I have two cats, one who is a long haired part Persian, who brought home "little friends" last month. I had forgotten her flea treatment, it was a week or so overdue, and she was covered in them! I had to comb and clip her (highly strung, sharp clawed, large, strong cat - my hands and arms were lacerated aftwards) and treat her, treat our other cat, strip and wash all our bedding (she was on our bed, when I found them, one hopped onto my hand) and then get a special flea spray to treat the whole house for eggs. We have had some weird warm then cold weather, which has, according to my vet, has made the fleas more active. I was totally grossed out and am now rigid about checking them, and treating them regularly. It makes me itchy just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteI also heard they are more susceptible if you change their environment or if they get stressed out. We went out of town for about a week and they stayed with my in-laws... I wonder if that's what did it? I have no idea but I'm still itching like crazy. Every little black ball of fuzz or lint catches my eye and I think it's a flea.... PARANOID!
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