Nasty little buggers....

Friday, October 27, 2006

Nasty little buggers.... If there is one thing that I hate in my house is fleas. I can deal with the spiders although its not fair that I havent gotten my cuts from the morning peep shows yet. I dealt with the fruit flies because in a way I found that amusing. Not at the time of course, but I can laugh at it now. The occasional fly or moth doesnt bother me. Ants tend to get on my nerve but they are easily taken care of. But I hate fleas. I know they cant be avoided sometimes. Especially at this time of the year. But heres the thing. I dont have an outside animal. I have an inside cat that doesnt come in contact with any other animal other than the fish tank. If my fish have fleas then there is something drastically wrong with this picture. So this brings me to wonder where in the hell a flea came from that got on my cat. My cat is white with tiger stripes in patches. Yes I saw the little bugger with my own eyes. I had my dog for all of her 11 plus years of her life. I was there the night she was born. She never had fleas. Never. She did however have a tick now and then. Three total her whole life but I contribute that to walks in the woods. I was very particular to have her groomed on a schedule of every two months. Being a very large German Shepherd, I didnt want that hair clogging my drains. Well about 3 years ago, my neighbor moved out and a new one moved in. Mind you that I live in an upstairs apartment and we have a shared back yard. I clean up after my dog but these new people choose not to. Well now somehow my dog had fleas. And then again, so did their dog. Lets do the math here. So I went though hell and back with the groomers and the bug bombs. Repeatedly. Finally I got tired of it and forced them to leave for a day and take their animals to a groomers and I bombed the entire house. Its aweful when you have to do that. How can people stand it? Well this brings us to the present day and time. Their dog is clean of fleas because they treat her constantly and their cat is an outdoor cat but hes wearing a flea collar. Simply because Im the one that bought it and put it on him. But I do know that they dont vacumm or clean their place all that well. Yeah Im being nice about this. So last night I got to thinking. How is there a flea in my apartment? There are no other animals that come in here. Then it dawned on me. The heating vents. We have forced hot air heating. Now when Tracie lived downstairs, her dog didnt have fleas so this never happened. So here I am having recently bombed the house. See a previous post about a certain smell. And Im cuddling my cat and she has a flea on her. Well, thats just not going to happen now is it. I have these drops that you put on the animals neck to repel fleas, ticks and mosquitos. Its supposed to also kill them and the eggs. Ive used it on my dog when I would take her camping just as a precaution. Nothing like sleeping in a tent with a dog that has fleas. Well I also have an unused packet for cats because my intention was to use them on the cat that lives downstairs. Yes I take care of everyone elses animals too. Its just my heart. Its the way I am. I would feed every kid in town too if I could. So last night I decided to break out the box and read the instructions. Cats are alot different in dogs because of self grooming habits. You can only put this stuff in certain places as it is. Well on a cat, that place is at the very back of the neck where they cant reach to groom. Well my kitty loves me and will trust me to do whats right for her. But I think she saw me coming with that packet. I didnt think of it then but I remember now that in her papers when I adopted her, her previous owner used Frontline on her. Im sure she remembers what this stuff feels like and I dont blame her for running. Let me inform you that it is about 11:30 at night when Im doing this. I catch her and soothe her on my lap. Shes calming down and I applied the drops. Not the full dose but most of it. As soon as the stuff hit her skin, she went hightail off my lap. She flew out of my room and disappeared into the darkness of the dining room. I went in search of her and I was careful not to wake anyone up. Thats all I needed was for Cami to wake up and wonder what Im doing to the cat. Well I spy her under the table and shes crouched down. Im thinking shes about to attack so I left her alone. But I want to keep an eye on her in case she has a reaction to it. Yeah, a reaction. What would I do? It says that I need to bathe the animal in case this happens. Have you ever bathed a cat before? Trust me, this isnt a pleasant experience. And Im not talking about the cat. Ive never had a cat that liked water. Well Buddy liked it but I never got the chance to dunk him. To bathe a cat requires, socks, rubberbands, antibiotics and alot of bandaids. Maybe the occasional trip to the ER for stitches buts thats rare depending on the cat. Dogs are much easier to bathe. They only try to bite. A cat will try to end your life by gouging out your eyeballs. Well anywho, Sara is literally tearing up my house. Zoom to the kitchen. Zoom to the livingroom. Zoom to the bathroom. Shes not liking this at all. Im standing in the kitchen watching this and waiting for the flying leap to my face. She finally settles down under a chair in the dining room. Its one where I laid my coat so shes hiding under my dangling sleeve. She will be ok. If there was going to be a dangerous reaction, it would have happened by now. So I decided to go back to my room and chat with Jade. We got into talking about the Halloween Exchange and I didnt even notice Sara coming into my room. She hopped up on the back of my chair and laid down. Hmmm... Im guessing this means shes not hating me for doing that to her. Thats a good thing because I sleep with this cat on my bed at night. As small as she is, she takes up most of it. I wouldnt want to wake up in the morning to find a surprise. You know, like my left ear down by my foot. But at least she isnt scratching. And thats also a good thing. This morning she was her lovey dovey self. I cant go anywhere in this house without this cat cuddling against me. And while I was getting dressed this morning she was right in her usual spot. But something very strange happened during the night. Ive used this on my dog several times. The chemical concentrations are different in the ones for cats because they will try to lick it off. So it cant be all that harmful right? Well, I woke up this morning all bright eyed and cheerful. No I didnt actually. I discovered that Im allergic to this stuff.