Dog stuff
Guinness had her first tick. My mom said she felt it the day before yesterday and thought it was a scab or something, so I started trying to find it when I felt it and told her it was a tick. Back when I was riding horses, Faye specificly showed us (some of the volunteers around the barn) a tick because a lot of us hadn't seen one, and she told us to check the horses sometimes for them. We never found any others, and I had never seen a tick inside something. But the legs moved.
So then mom freaked out a little and called dad. Dad said to use a burnt match to get it to come out, which I didn't think was a good idea because she's a dog so a. she's hairy, and b. she squirms. Thus mom looked it up on the internet because I had only seen the dead tick that Faye showed us, I didn't take it out. We had tweezers and stuff, but no antibacterial stuff, and mom wanted to use latex gloves (probably a good idea since it's a tick), so we ended up going to Petco to look for dog antibacterial stuff. They had some, but it was expensive, and we got some flea and tick treatment stuff, and some of those tick tweezers were you just twist the tick out instead of pulling. She's been lucky because she's never had fleas before, and never had any other ticks or parasites or anything like that.
We got gloves too and antibacterial stuff at Longs instead, because it was too expensive at Petco, and went home. As soon as I put the gloves on, Guinness slinked away to hide under the table. Dope. It's not like the vet puts on gloves when she sees her, Guinness is just weird, but then she slinked back out and I got her to lay down. She squirmed, made it difficult to find the thing again, and then she's got a lot of hair so it was hard to do the twisty thing without catching her fur, but I got it out head and all. Mom for some reason wanted to put it in a plastic bag and it crawled around for sometime.
I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow just to get it checked out, make sure the bite itself isn't infected or anything, but I think she's fine. If it was a dog tick, which I think it was, they don't typically carry Lyme disease, so she should be ok for that. Besides, she needs shots anyway and dad refuses to take her in.
Mom was saying that we've kind of been relying on dad to just take care of the dog(s) on his own, which is kind of true. Granted for awhile I couldn't drive and so forth, so I couldn't actually take them. But Guinness being our second dog, and having owned her at the same time as the first, they were both almost like prototypes. I have plans when I move out, possibly before, to get a dog. I think probably what I'll do is get a puppy before I move out, and get him housetrained, then move into a new place because that would be easier than having a dog and trying to housetrain him in a place I'm most likely renting. I've had this plan for awhile, I want to get a beagle puppy, and no it's not just because of Porthos no matter how adorable he is. I've always liked beagles, when we were first going to get a dog, I pushed to get a beagle but dad kept saying "they dig". That was the only reason "they dig". So...if they dig, you bop them lightly with a newspaper and say no. They're smart dogs, they'll figure it out.
So I want to get a beagle puppy. I'm going to name him Sam, because I want to. And I'm going to take a lot better care of Sammy's health, he's going to get all his shots, he's going to be on heartworm ALL THE TIME NOT JUST WHEN CERTAIN PEOPLE GET TOO LAZY TO DO IT, and so forth. (*cough*dad). Mom was asking if I was going to crate him at night, but.. beagles are small, he can sleep on my bed once he's housetrained, I'd like that especially if I was living alone. I might crate him during the day so he doesn't chew on things, and if he has an accident, the crate is easy enough to clean. But that's a little ways off in the future before I get Sam. For right now, I'll focus on Guinness.
So then mom freaked out a little and called dad. Dad said to use a burnt match to get it to come out, which I didn't think was a good idea because she's a dog so a. she's hairy, and b. she squirms. Thus mom looked it up on the internet because I had only seen the dead tick that Faye showed us, I didn't take it out. We had tweezers and stuff, but no antibacterial stuff, and mom wanted to use latex gloves (probably a good idea since it's a tick), so we ended up going to Petco to look for dog antibacterial stuff. They had some, but it was expensive, and we got some flea and tick treatment stuff, and some of those tick tweezers were you just twist the tick out instead of pulling. She's been lucky because she's never had fleas before, and never had any other ticks or parasites or anything like that.
We got gloves too and antibacterial stuff at Longs instead, because it was too expensive at Petco, and went home. As soon as I put the gloves on, Guinness slinked away to hide under the table. Dope. It's not like the vet puts on gloves when she sees her, Guinness is just weird, but then she slinked back out and I got her to lay down. She squirmed, made it difficult to find the thing again, and then she's got a lot of hair so it was hard to do the twisty thing without catching her fur, but I got it out head and all. Mom for some reason wanted to put it in a plastic bag and it crawled around for sometime.
I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow just to get it checked out, make sure the bite itself isn't infected or anything, but I think she's fine. If it was a dog tick, which I think it was, they don't typically carry Lyme disease, so she should be ok for that. Besides, she needs shots anyway and dad refuses to take her in.
Mom was saying that we've kind of been relying on dad to just take care of the dog(s) on his own, which is kind of true. Granted for awhile I couldn't drive and so forth, so I couldn't actually take them. But Guinness being our second dog, and having owned her at the same time as the first, they were both almost like prototypes. I have plans when I move out, possibly before, to get a dog. I think probably what I'll do is get a puppy before I move out, and get him housetrained, then move into a new place because that would be easier than having a dog and trying to housetrain him in a place I'm most likely renting. I've had this plan for awhile, I want to get a beagle puppy, and no it's not just because of Porthos no matter how adorable he is. I've always liked beagles, when we were first going to get a dog, I pushed to get a beagle but dad kept saying "they dig". That was the only reason "they dig". So...if they dig, you bop them lightly with a newspaper and say no. They're smart dogs, they'll figure it out.
So I want to get a beagle puppy. I'm going to name him Sam, because I want to. And I'm going to take a lot better care of Sammy's health, he's going to get all his shots, he's going to be on heartworm ALL THE TIME NOT JUST WHEN CERTAIN PEOPLE GET TOO LAZY TO DO IT, and so forth. (*cough*dad). Mom was asking if I was going to crate him at night, but.. beagles are small, he can sleep on my bed once he's housetrained, I'd like that especially if I was living alone. I might crate him during the day so he doesn't chew on things, and if he has an accident, the crate is easy enough to clean. But that's a little ways off in the future before I get Sam. For right now, I'll focus on Guinness.