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17 November 2014
Parasites freak me out. These creatures live off of the life force of others. It's terrifying to think about. Never in my life have I encountered a tick. Fleas- yes; they're disgusting enough and make my fur friends miserable, but at least they can be methodically taken care of with minimal trauma. That all changed this past week when Autumn, our oldest, came in from her nightly walk with one of these dreadful things on her chest. Marieke found it and swiftly dealt with it (thankfully), so I only heard about it and got correspondingly heebiddy jeebeedied.
Two days after Autumn had her tick, Oskar comes in with a tick on his head. I could see it this time and it was so disgusting. I thought I might loose my dinner. Marieke again took him to the third floor bathroom for a successful extraction.
To review: 38 years... No ticks ever.
About a week after Autumn had her tick, I picked up Manfred and started petting him. And that's when my life changed forever- not for the better. There was a tick just behind his left ear and my hand brushed past it. Not once but twice. I didn't realize what it was at first of course. But once I did, I freaked out of my skin. It's bulbous body had clearly been feeding for a long time.
In the third floor bathroom, I held Manfred so that Marieke could swab some rubbing alcohol on the tiny vampire, which made it release its death grip on my precious baby. We let it fall into the sink, but it wasn't obvious the vile creature was dead, so we set the thing on fire. and then lit it on fire. The sound of its tiny blood sucking head exploding was edifying.
Now I'm terrified to take these dogs for a walk.
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