Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Tick King Dog


If you read Talking Dogs yesterday you saw this photo.  Many probably recognized Jeffie. 

A couple of mornings ago, I was out in my studio taking photographs of new jewelry for For Love of a Dog and Bittersweet Ridge.  The south side of my studio is all floor to ceiling windows overlooking our garden, creek and a series of springfed ponds.

My map drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, but this may help:


Something caught my eye and I was startled to see little Miss Rosie between the south garden perimeter fence and the big pond.  She was looking straight at me and I know that she knew she shouldn't be out there.  By the time I made is outside, she was back in the backyard.
I looked for Rudy, who has, in fact, been known to jump the yard fence.  Rudy was up on the deck.  What a good boy!    

How did this happen?  Some idiot left the gates open.  Both the gate from our backyard into the garden AND the gate from the garden over by the greenhouse which leads to pretty much our whole acreage.

So, anyway, I call (and call) for Jeffie...  no Jeffie in sight.

Whoops!  Could that be Jeffie?

 Oh, yeah.  That's Jeffie alright!

Sitting in the most marshy area of the creek, in the middle of cattails.


I forgot to add it to my little map, but there is a gate from the backyard to the creek, which is where I headed.  I'm standing on the edge of the march, calling and coaxing Jeffie.  He would not budge.

I holler for the idiot and he goes into action.  Around the garden he goes, crosses the pond via the bermed road, and advances on Jeffie from the other side of the creek.

He reports that Jeffie is not stuck or hung up in any way.  Jeffie appears to be afraid to venture into the creek, so won't cross it and come back to me and the yard.


Of course, when Jeffie realizes the Dog Daddy is over there on his side, he's happy to oblige all the coaxing and join the Dog Daddy for a walk back home.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until Jeffie had been back in the house for a little while that we noticed the little spots that pretty much covered him.  TICKS!  Lots and lots of the little devils.  We've never picked so many ticks or so fast.  We stopped counting in the 50's.

Thanks to the topical treatment our dogs are sporting this year, the ticks on Jeffie were on the move... to his face, lower legs and feet.

Our blogger friends at My Brown Newfies had just posted a great article about ticks this year.  The tick forecast is:  gonna be a bad one.  We'd already noticed way more ticks than usual, hence the topical treatment this year.  Boy, little did we know!

Still picking a stray tick here or there.  Have run the vac (too much) to catch any that abandoned the good ship Jeffie.  Suspect I'll be creepy crawly for a long time to come.  Needless to say, Jeffie has been banned from sleeping with us.  AND we learned that not only does he not like the doggie swimming pool, our Tick King, Jeffie, is not about to put his feet in a creek! 

The Talking Dogs Tick King, Jeffie
I hate ticks.  They're right up there with ants, but at least I can thank the ants for helping my peonies open!  Even though we live in the country, we've never had a problem and didn't even use any topical applications last year.  As I write this, the Dog Daddy is out picking up chemicals to spray on the backyard and garden fence lines.  Hate to do it, but gotta draw a line.  Literally.

21 comments:

  1. I absolutely HATE ticks its why we dont walk the dogs in the woods any more. Even with preventative on the last hike we tooked we removed over 50 ticks form the dogs, and the car was crawling with ticks, they were on preventative so they were not attatched. I blame global warming. I use preventative now but hate doing so as I dont like the chemicals I apply it when I know we will go in a tick area or in the summer months

    urban hounds

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  2. Silly Jeffie. I hate ticks too...yuck. Marshy grass is the perfect place for them. Again yuck!

    Your drawing is great by the way. :)

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  3. Eck! So sorry to hear about the tick king:) We are thinking about spraying our yard this year too. We've never had to do it in the past, but I don't want to chance it this year!

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  4. Horrible. Ticks are the worst AND dangerous. Toby now wears a special tick collar when in the woods in addition to some fancy new topical stuff. Ugh. Usually I shun chemicals since we get plenty of toxins in everyday living, but honestly sometimes DEET saves the camping trip for us humans. Lyme disease scares me!

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  5. YIKES! With the odd weather this year got to be"extra" careful. LOVE your illustrations. Golden Woofs, Sugar

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  6. Eek... I'm shuddering just thinking about all of those ticks. I am totally with you - I hate them so much!

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  7. Rooo pawsome mischief, but those ticks are nasty little creatures! I hope you managed to get rid of all of them *Waggy tail*

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  8. Oh dear dawg...you just gave Ma the heeby-jeebies talking about ticks. Thankfully, she hasn't found any on me....yet!

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  9. Ticks are totally evil. We live in an area where fortunately they don't, but our neighbors brought in dogs from the mountains a few years ago that had ticks and they spread to the neighborhood. We didn't like spraying, but there was no other way. We did get rid of them quickly.

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  10. Oh my gosh! You had me giggling all the way up to the TICKS part! OMG! I hate the rat bastages! What topical are you using for your babes? We use Frontline on Titan but I'm always afraid that won't do the trick! Did any sink their teeth into Jeffie or just kinda "hitchin a ride"? Egads! I shouldn't have read this at lunch! Eeek! Now I feel creepy crawlers on me! hehe

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  11. We hate ticks!
    None so far this summer,
    and we hope it stays that way!

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  12. OMD!!!! Stopped counting at 50??!!!!! The horror.

    So glad we don't live in tick country. Eeeeesh. I would definitely kick him out of the bed too! And the hubs, just to be on the safe side! ;)

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  13. That's just vile. I spray the dogs before we walk and I've taken to hosing them down (their legs and tummy mostly) then I brush them. So far, (knock on wood) it's working.

    Of course we have the yard sprayed, it's just part of the process. And YES, I'm always creepy crawly after I find one!!

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  14. Oh nooooooooo!! Now I am nervous that Dakota is going to have them and with his long coat it will be a complete nightmare! Ohhhhhhhh noooooooo!!

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  15. Great drawing and photos, 50 ticks in that little time, wow!

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  16. Ticks are horrible. We do have to be careful about them here, but 50 in one go is a lot of ticks!

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  17. Tick King, indeed! Yuck!!! I hate ticks too. I feel itchy all over just thinking about them. :P

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  18. I knew he was going to be full of ticks! They are so bad this year, we have them in just regular yard grass. We hate those little bleeping things! Hope husband got the ticks of himself as well!

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  19. Oh yuck! I hate them too! I found one on Shiner the other day. I've found maybe 2 on her in 10 years. The small baby ticks are the worst to find. One thing about some topicals is that sometimes the ticks still stay attached to the dog even after the tick is dead. At least that's what one of the Frontline drug reps told us once.

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  20. Mom HATES ticks, she is obsessed with checking us but I know its for our own good. Great pics!!

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  21. The Seresto collar is working really well for us this year...Only one tick so far in all our hikes...and a little gadget called a tick key works magic in lifting them off

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Go ahead... bark at us!