"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. " ~ Anatole France
I can handle most things that belong to the animal kingdom ~ snakes, spiders, the odd scorpion. What I cannot abide are those things that are a parasite in nature ~ leeches, fleas, ticks! They make my skin crawl, my liver quiver, & shrieks form in the pit of my belly. I do not like parasites!
I don't like ticks & in particular I don't like paralysis ticks. Of the 4 animals we have owned we have lost two to paralysis ticks. Christy, our dally, had one crawl up inside her. I looked & looked & looked, you know, but until it was hanging out her orifice & huge I couldn't find it & by then it was far too late. Bindy, Theo's cat, was rather wild & wouldn't let me near her. She was pretty far gone when I could handle her & we lost her too despite all our care. Both deaths were devastating so I am fanatical about grooming my animals & checking them over every single day, but especially in tick season.
It shouldn't be tick season but we've had rain & there are one or two about. Normally I drag out a nit comb several times a day & run it through Issi's fur. He is used to this treatment & lifts his head so I can run the comb down his throat in long strokes that have him purring & spluttering in ecstasy. It has the added advantage of picking up any debris in his coat & the odd flea he may have picked up in his wanderings & is a blessing when he moults, clearing his coat of great handfuls of fur at a swoop.
Issi loves to be groomed. He's a lazy puss & would much rather I groom him than have to do it himself so when he cringed away from the comb but was obviously irritated by something under the chin I feared the worst. Sure enough I could feel a lump but no way was Issi letting me near it to see. I grabbed a great wad of Ichthamol ointment, known round here as *black grease, & smothered as much as I could under his chin knowing it was thick enough to suffocate anything alive under there.
Several hours later I tried again with the comb. Iss raised no further objections when I gingerly ran the comb under his chin but I was hampered in my investigations by ~ black grease! Oooey. Eventually I was able to see & found not one but two paralysis ticks attached to his windpipe! Yucky, yucky! he's a lucky puss. No damage done & he's none the worse for it.
Anything that will smother a tick is a blessing ~ oil or lanolin or Vaseline. I learnt this trick with Iss when he was little. He constantly got bush ticks attached to his eyelids where he was too antsy to let even me near with the tweezers but I could smother them & they would die & fall out themselves.
It may be foolishness but we love our animals & can't bear to have them suffer. I don't understand cruelty to animals who cannot defend themselves from us. We have so much power over them, the least I can do is use that power for good. Besides Iss loves me. I have the chicken treats!
14 comments:
This I didnot know, notes taken, eeeeeew
xc
I didn't realise there was somthing one could put on ticks to smother them. Is Ichthamol available over the counter? Alternatively, will _anything_ viscous (and non-toxic) really do the job?
Siano
Siano: Ichthamol ~ black ointment, drawing ointment & available over the counter but seriously Vaseline is just as good & cheaper at the supermarket. It's just I didn't have any Vaseline. It simply suffocates the tick when you smother it. You can use anything that will smother. Vaseline is good because it's non irritant in any way.
Hojos: yeah, the things they don't tell you at the immigration office! :D
Those seem like rather nasty ticks indeed. Lucky Iss you are so diligent.
I love your 'roos.
I love your koalas.
I love your sharks.
I love your spikey little echidnas.
You can keep your ticks.
Sounds awful!! Here, ticks bite people as well and you can get Lyme disease.
oh my !! i am so glad you got those nasty ticks. we have dreadful deer ticks around here. ever since my mother contracted lyme disease from one i have been a fanatic about them too...
ugh, just the thought of the disgusting little critters makes me *shudder*
We get a variety of Lyme but we call it Ross River fever or Dengue(pronounced dengy)Fever. Paralysis ticks are nasty.
Oh, yuck! Fortunately for us, we don't get ticks down here where we are.
So sorry. I got my Ticks and Mozzie fevers mixed up.
S'alright, Kimba. I'm probably the only one that noticed! ;)
HSM4C: Unfortunately for us we have bandicoots & they carry the rotten little things all round the place. Paralysis ticks are killers & it's a nasty, horrible death. It makes me want chooks again. I think thety eat them. Never saw a tick when I had chooks.
I'd never heard of paralysis ticks. Sounds nasty. In Oklahoma we have plenty of ticks, fleas, and chiggers. We've always "treated" ticks with a thick coat of Vaseline.
In Texas the fire ants had one redeeming quality - they ate ticks. The thicker the fire ants got, the fewer ticks we'd see. Still got fleas, though.
Do you guys have the once a month treatment for fleas/ticks? In the US you can get it over the counter (kinda works) or at the vet (expensive) - just a little vial that you squeeze between the pet's shoulder blades. One brand name is Frontline. I don't know if it'd work on the paralysis ticks anyway.
Iss is blessed that you are diligent about the combing. I know you are glad, too.
You may not believe this, but I know a machine that can make isopathics, like homeopathics, but made from the actual substances that cause allergic reactions or illnesses. A remedy made with such a machine using the tick or touching a probe to the area of the bite can neutralize the paralyzing side effects when the remedy is given every fifteen minutes until all the symptoms are gone or the pet can be treated directly from the machine.
Remedies have been also made from snake bites and many other poisons. I also have other things too that work similarly that are more portable.
Once a friend of mine, highly allergic to wasp stings, was amazed she did not need her eppy pen after she was stung with a twenty minute treatment of something we call polarizer that I carry in my purse. I have used these things for years on our pets and ourselves.
As to treatments, I don't poison my animals with things like Frontline unless our dog gets overrun with fleas, which usually only happens when we travel. Our entire property is "polarized" and most parasitical insects don't like such areas and we live up against a forest. It does not cause any harm to bees, butterflies, or ants, but it makes the fire ants less poisonous too.
I never used to freak out about ticks until I contracted Lyme's disease last year and I am still struggling with it (after 3 courses of antibiotics!). Now I am a bit more diligent about checking out the kids and animals. Ewww.
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