I hate ticks the way Indiana Jones hates snakes.
Over the last six days I’ve pulled eight ticks off me. Two of them on two consecutive nights when I woke up with one crawling on me. I had to get up, grab my pocket knife, carefully scrape the tick of me, then cut it in half in the sink. They die and they die ugly. I pulled one off that was crawling up my leg while waiting in the pharmacy to get the wife’s meds. The lady at the counter gave me an alarmed look when I had my pocket knife out and opened as I exited the store with the tick on the blade. It too died ugly.
The other day I went to pull a tick off Major Tom, and it turned out to be a cluster of six of the little bastadges. Major Tom gets the most of them. He has to walk under or next to every bush on the walk. That’s where the ticks hang out – on the underside of leaves.
I’ve started trying to walk the dogs more regularly now that the ice and snow have stopped. The temperatures are mostly good for walking. At least I’m not having to get layered up before exiting the house. The problem is, the ticks are coming out in full force now that the weather is nicer. Its just that time of year I guess.
At least they are easy to see on Major Tom. Black bug against white fur stands out. Most of the time I can find them as they are crawling on his side, or up his legs. It seems I missed a few the other day. In addition to the aforementioned cluster, there was one embedded on his ear. He usually holds still when I grabbed the tweezers to extract the creature. But for some odd reason, he wants to try and eat the bug when I carry it outside for execution.
Magdalena has white legs so if they are crawling there they can be found easily. But most of the rest of her is black fur. Once they get there, it is nigh impossible to find them, unless the start bloating after attaching to her.
Sirocco is the hardest to find them on. He’s tan pretty much all over and the black bugs don’t stand out as much. Fortunately the ticks don’t seem to like him as much as the other two.
I’m getting paranoid about them now. Any time I have an itch I have to make sure it isn’t a tick. If I think something might be crawling on me I have to check to see if it is a tick. (Over the last few days I’ve been right!) By pure chance I found one on the back of my neck as it was trying to burrow into me. Like all the others it died ugly.
We went out to get flea and tick preventive medications for the dogs today. We’ve also got insecticide to put down in the yard to kill them at least in the area we control. The dogs will still pick them up on walks. I’ll just have to remain vigilant and check them more vigorously to make sure they don’t carry any into the house.
I hope your life is free from ticks, my Hordeling.
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