Poor Annie, she is absolutely miserable with itching. We started to notice a couple of weeks ago that she was starting to shed--a lot. Like daily, or twice daily vacuuming the entire house. I thought that she was shedding her winter coat since she (obviously) doesn't need it down here. But then Matt saw one of the critters crawl on Annie's back. OMG! It's not like she goes anywhere. She's only been to the dog walking area of the apartment building and the apartment. So the only place she could have picked them up is the apartment grounds.
I thought I was going to die. Russell ran right away to the pet shop to buy some flea shampoo. We filled the bathtub up with warm water, doused her with water and lathered the poor thing up. She was beside herself with distress. The entire time I was washing her, in my head I was singing, "there's fleas on my dog, there's fleas on my dog..." set to the tune of Feliz Navidad. In fact, that earworm was stuck there for several days.
While she was drying we deep cleaned everything from carpets to furniture to bedding. I used my steam cleaner on the floors, mattresses, carpets and furniture. They smelled clean and fresh when we were done.
One of the nasty little critters.
You can see them on her back.
At least she is going to smell good, right?
The next weekend, she was loaded with them again. So we bathed her again, and cleaned again. This week we put on a flea collar. All that seems to have done is make her stink like old bacon.
We are going to give her another bath and good combing tonight. And another deep clean of the house. If this doesn't do it, we will have to resort to going to the vet for medicine.
If you have any good home remedies that we can try, please post them. I kinda hate to waste money on vet bills, but I can't sleep at night thinking about those creepy critter jumping around the house.
Missing you all...
