Pinky is Home

Pinky is home and resting comfortably. Actually, she isn't resting at all! She is back to her normal self and is chasing Chi-Chi all over the house. Chi-Chi chasing is one of Pinky's favorite games. Chi-Chi is so happy to have her big sister home that she doesn't mind a bit.

The second that Pinky walked through the door, Chi-Chi was all over her. The hospital gave her a bath and she smells wonderful, but I think that Chi-Chi doesn't like the new Pinky scent. She's looking for her old smelly self. Just wait a few days Chi-Chi and she'll be back!

Pinky is in the Hospital

Poor girl. She woke up two weeks ago and the left side of her face was swollen so much that she looked like an Akita! I took her to the hospital for an emergency vet visit on a Sunday morning. She was in SO much pain that she would not even let the vet look inside her mouth. The vet suspected an abscessed tooth was the culprit.

We were sent home with pain killers and anti-biotic. The swelling went down after a few days and I made an appointment to go back so that they could get a look at her mouth. It appeared to be an tooth abscess, so Pinky was scheduled for dental surgery. They were pretty booked, but we managed to squeeze in. I didn't want to wait until the end of March which was when they originally booked her appointment.

I brought her in early this morning and she was not happy. She was not happy that she could not eat her normal breakfast (but she was absolutely gleeful when I gave her a bonus meal last night at 10:30 pm!). She conveniently forgot about the bonus meal. I thought it would make skipping breakfast less devastating, but I was wrong. However, Chi-Chi was able to gloat that she was eating a meal that Pinky had to skip!

The vet called and told me that Pinky was already awake. They had to pull five teeth, one of them was here canine (the big fang) that was the one with the abscess. She is resting and they will try to feed her later tonight. I won't be able to take her home until tomorrow sometime. They want to monitor her overnight and I think that is a

Pinky is Sick Again

Pinky had a bad weekend. She has not been able to eat her food without throwing up. I gave her oatmeal this morning and she immediately threw it up. I don't know if it is related to the colitis from 1.5 weeks ago or not. I know she is dehydrated because she keeps drinking water. I went to work this morning and called the vet at 9 am to make an appointment for the evening.

The vet http://www.oradell.com/home.htm always asks what you are coming in for so I explained what has been going on since Friday night and her bout with colitis not that long ago. She asked if I could come in at 10:30 because they had a gastrointerologist specialist at the hospital at that time who would be able to see Pinky and she thought that might be the best bet for what she has been going through. I agree to the appointment and thankfully my boss is a real dog person and so it wasn't a problem for me to leave and then come back.

I went home to pick up Pinky, and Chi-Chi is always disappointed when I take her sister and she gets left behind. She has no way of knowing that we are going to the House of Pain. All she knows is that she is being excluded and doesn't like it one bit.

We drove to the vet and Pinky was stnding on her hind legs to look out of the window. She didn't seem to care that we were going to the vet. The specialist who saw Pinky was Dr. Hall. She was very nice and read Pinky's complete chart so she could get up to speed on her. I explained what was happening and she examined the Pinkster. She pulled on her neck skin and said she was very dehydrated. She wanted to give her antibiotics as an injection and to inject her with fluids. She thought that I should leave Pinky overnight, but said I could take her home if I really wanted, however she took Pinky's temperature and it was 104, which is very high. She recommended that I keep her at the hospital so that they could monitor her and hook her up to and IV to re-hydrate her and give her anti-naseua meds through the IV.

I was kind of stunned, because I wasn't expecting to leave the animal hospital without my precious Pinky! I know it was the best I could do for her and so I agreed to it. They gave me an estimate of $1200 which included a complete blood work, meds, overnight stay and urine analysis. They were concerned thate her bladder stones would come back (an earlier problem she had surgery for last year). Depending upon the results of her UA and blood work, they might do an ultrasound tomorrow, which was not included in the estimate. Dr. Hall said she'd call me later in the day to let me know how Pinky was doing.

Pinky Update

Dr. Hall called me to tell me how Pinky was doing. She hasn't thrown up, but they also have not given her any foods. Her temperature was still high, but she didn’t start getting the antbiotics until around 3 pm, so it could still go down in the morning. She spent the day pretty much just sleeping and resting. Pretty normal though considering how dehydrated she was. Dr. Hall will call me tomorrow to let me know how Pinky was doing.



10/9/2007 5:15 pm

Pinky is on the Mend!

I am happy to report that Pinky has not had any more mucus or boody poop emanating from her butt since Tuesday morning. She is running around and eating and playing like she normally does. Whew! Crisis averted.

Does Your Dog Fart?

Chi-Chi and I were cuddled on the couch last night. She was in my lap curled up into a little ball. I was rubbing her ears and if she could, she would have been purring. She was in Ecstasy. All was well until I heard a soft ppppfft. I wasn't even sure what that noise was at first. Then it hit me. The smell of rotting garbage was emanating from my dog's butt. OMG! It was the most horrific stench ever. The best part? She didn't even move! I guess the smell had not wafted towards her sniffer. This scent needs to be bottled, patented and shipped over to drop as a bomb in Iraq. Might end the war a little sooner.

It made me wonder whether anyone else's dog farts too?

Pinky never farts. In fact, she runs away whenever she hears a fart. That's right. Even when she is curled up next to me fast asleep, if my husband should fart (and he does) Pinky jumps high into the air and jumps off the bed. The fart doesn't even have to smell. As long as it rumbles, she is outta there.

I had a mini-schnauzer would would fart and then stand on his hind legs sniffing the air. It was as if he wondered where the fart came from. Yes, it was a sight to see. He didn't really have a gas problem. I recall that he was on some medication and the side effect was severe farting.

The Diet is Working

Chi-Chi's wacky rash showed up once again. It is definitely worse in the summer, but she gets it in the winter too. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it hits which is frustrating. The creams we had from the last time just weren't working, and since we were going to be on vacation for a week, I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving my dad with a sickly dog to look after. Time for the HOUSE OF PAIN, also known as "the vet."

While waiting for the vet I plopped Chi-Chi on the cat scale because I think she looks like she lost weight and wanted to know before the doctor came in. The numbers were down! I waited for the vet to come in and I had her weigh chubsey-ubsey to get the official weight. Drumroll please......11.6 pounds. She lost 2 pounds in two months! The vet was thrilled and so was I. She wanted to know what I was doing and I told her that Chi-Chi was on a no-snack diet and was eating 1/4 cup of Purina Overweight Management dog food twice a day.

Chi-Chi was given a supply of two antibiotics. She was better by the time we left for Montral, but I had to make up a chart for my dad to follow. There are two different meds and each one had differing dosage that changed from twice a day to every other day to 1/2 a pill. It was confusing for me, so imagine a 72 year old trying to administer the meds.

Chi-Chi's pet insurance has a rider that won't cover any of her rash issues! Poor baby came to us with a rash and I guess the pet insurance company made a good decision for them because she has been to the vet many times over this freaking rash that comes and goes at will! I still have the vet send the bill to the pet insurance company. I noticed that they wrote down something else on the bill so I am wondering if they will pay or not.

Chi-Chi has moved from the obese to the overweight category. We have a ways to go, but her progress has been great and is very encouraging! Of course we were gone for a week and my dad was taking care of the dogs. I swear that Chi-Chi looked a little plumper than when we had left. My husband said I was crazy...He may be right.

All Righty, Chi-Chi is just Fat

Normally when you are waiting for blood test results, you are hoping for them to be negative, right? How come I was disappointed when the vet called me to say that Chi-Chi does not have a thyroid problem? I guess I was hoping that was the problem so we could just put her on meds and she would lose the excess pounds. Does that make me a bad surrogate mommy??

Crap. Well, now we just have some work ahead of us. We've been testing out the new food. She loved the wet stuff, but it did not love her. She got the runs from it. We won't be using that food. Just as well though because it was difficult setting up the dog food because they were both eating wet and they were both different formulas. Now if I were the one who fed them, this wouldn't be a problem. My 71 year old dad feeds them in the afternoon and I had to label which one was which. I already prep the food for him and put the correct amount in the bowls, but he could still give the dog the wrong food because once the label was off, they looked the same.

She likes the Purina OM (overwight management). I didn't try the wet OM because of the first attempt with another wet food. I went right for the dry. She ate it. Now we'll see how she does with diet food. I am hoping that it makes a differnce. I am also trying to exercise her more. The two have to have an effect, right? Stay tuned.

Chi-Chi update, a.k.a. the Fat Chihuahua

Chi-Chi also went for her check up in June. It was supposed to be May, but I just couldn't get there then. After being on No-Snacks and dividing up her food to two 1/4 cup portions twice a day, I was expecting her to weigh less. I have to say though, that she did not look smaller to me.

When we were in the waiting room, others who were waiting struck up a conversation with me. "What kind of dog is that?" they asked. I knew what they were really asking though. They thought that she couldn't possibly be a chihuahua because she was so big. When people think chihuahua, they think Paris Hilton's Tinkerbell. You know, that anorexic bitch. And her dog is so skinny too....

Okay, first off. My dogs are both real chihuahuas. The "teacup" or "pocket" type dogs are not real. They were bred down to get them that size. It is dangerous to have them that size because they have lots of breathing issues and get hurt very easily. They are often severely injured by falling off of a couch because they are so fragile. They are not recognized by the American Kennel Club as being chihuahuas. My dogs are the real deal. They are both spayed and so that puts extra weight on them.

Okay, enough of my fat rant. So I tell them that she is a fat chihuahua. They laugh and say that they thought she was a chihuahua, but that she was so big they weren't sure. blah, blah, blah. We finally get to see the vet. She weighs Chi-Chi on the cat scale and her weight was 13.6 pounds. My dog has to be the only dog that can go on a diet and gain weight. I was upset. The vet said that they could run the blood work-up on her to see if she has a thyroid issue. She said it was up to me because the blood tests are very costly. I wanted to go ahead and do it because if it is her thyroid, it would just be a matter of putting her on a medication. If her blood tests come back negative, then we will switch her food to a diet food to see if that helps.

The vet sent me home with a giant bag of various brands of diet dog food. Some wet and some dry so that I can see which ones she likes best before buying any. That was nice of her.

Okay, Chi-Chi also has skin irritations. These come and go. I can't pin it down to a particular time of year. It was pretty bad this winter. Then she will scratch and scratch and make it worse. She has very little hair as it is, so I have to keep her nails short and filed down or she will easily tear her skin due to the scratching. I asked if she had seasonal allergies. Since she wasn't sneezing at all, she thought it was more likely that Chi-Chi had an allergic reaction to food. Great. More food issues. She was going to give me a cream to put on her to soothe the itching.

When I went to pay, the cashier was calculating the bill. Chi-Chi also was getting Advantage for flea prevention. Then the vet came by and gave the cashier the bag of food (free samples) along with the lotion. The cashier looked at the lotion and said, "I am not charging you for this. You are already paying so much" and she just tossed it in the bag without adding it in. I thought that was very nice of her. The bill was $650! Thank goodness I have pet insurance.

Seriously. If you do not have pet insurance, you should really consider it. I wasn't sure it was worth it because my regular office visits are $75, and everything they do is extra. Shots etc. The pet insurance gives you like $15 back for an office visit. So I was thinking that I would be paying more in premiums than what I would be getting back. Until I realized that I wasn't paying the premiums for the routine stuff anyway. In the event of something serious, I did not want to make a decision based on what it was going to cost me. My dog has cancer? Okay, start chemotherapy. That isn't something I would be able to afford unless I had the insurance. Thankfully, none of my dogs have had anything catastrophic like that, but Pinky's surgery was expensive. I was able to recoup 2/3 of what I paid for that. Yep, pet insurance is worth the premium.

Pinky Update~All Good

Oops, sorry it has taken me so long to post this. Thanks for all the emails. Pinky's urine analysis came back great! In fact, it was better this time than last time. The vet asked me if she was drinking a lot of water, but I said that I really didn't see her drinking a lot. As instructed by the vet, I add a lot of water to her food. Then I put in in the microwave for about 13 seconds to get the chill off. She drinks all the water in the food and then eats the food up. I think this is her main source of water these days, so I was worried about it, but the vet says it is fine.

Since she is 10 years old, and Chihuahuas are notorious for having bad teeth, I asked when she would start losing hers. The vet always remarked that he was surprised that she still had all of her teeth every time I had brought her in. He looked in her mouth and said that she already started losing them! Geez, I hadn't even noticed that, but sure enough he was correct. He opened her mouth and two of her bottom teeth are gone! I said that I never saw them on the floor or anything. Guess what? She probably ate them! Yuck.

We started using those tooth wipes instead of brushing her teeth and I can see that they aren't as good as the old toothbrush. As much as she hates it, we will start brushing her teeth again. It definitely gets the tarter off better.

Pinky Update

Pinky recovered fine from her pinched nerve. Obviously had nothing to do with the food! Guess my dad was wrong, imagine that!

Anyway, I sent her urine sample to the vet last week and she goes in tonight for her annual exam. I am hoping the analysis is clear and all looks good for her. She has been so spry since her surgery and the new food. It is almost as if she is a puppy again.

Will post details on Pinky's update tomorrow.

Pinky Sees the Vet

I guess they are taking turns. This month it is Pinky who is sick; last month it was Chi-Chi. Wednesday she was perfectly fine. Thursday morning I set out their breakfasts and only Chi-Chi came to eat. Pinky wasn't coming. I called and called, but nothing. This is highly unusual behavior for Pinky. When I found her she was cowering in the bedroom. I bent down to pick her up and she cried out in pain. I put her in front of her food and she ate. I had to carry her down the stairs of the deck so that she could do her business out there.

It seemed to me that she could not look up. Pinched nerve. She has had this in the past, so I made an appointment and she went to the vet last night. Of course, she didn't cry out in pain when she was there, but when the vet was feeling her neck, Pinky tensed up. They gave her an anti-inflammatory shot and took home meds for her to take. It should clear up in a few days.

My dad is insisting that the dog food I am feeding Pinky is the tainted dog food that has been recalled. Even though I know it isn't, he is insisting it is. Pinky eats Hill's Prescription canned dog food that I buy at the vets. Hills Country is one of the brands recalled. It isn't the same brand or company. I had to ask the vet, and she confirmed that none of the food that they dispense is part of the recall. I knew it was a silly thing to ask because I checked the can and manufacturer etc, but when your dad is nagging you....well, you just gotta ask sometimes.

Still Fat

Okay, so Chi-Chi is still fat. Everyone in the house is instructed to not give either dog any snacks. Pinky can't get a snack because Chi-Chi can't have any. I can't give to one and not the other, so they are both dieting. I weighed Chi-Chi one week after the no snack rule and she lost 6 ounces, which is a lot. However, since then she seems to have added on weight. I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment, but I think she is back to 13.2 pounds.

Pinky has reacted oddly to the no snack rule. It has turned her into a chow hound. The second she hears any kind of bag crumbling, she is right there! She is begging like mad. I swear you would think that this dog never eats, but she is getting fed twice a day now. Chi-Chi doesn't come running when Pinky does. You would think la gorda would run for food, but she doesn't and she isn't begging either. A strange role reversal for sure.

Chi-Chi goes for her check up in May. They will weigh her and see if she has lost weight. If not, they will do blood work to see if she has a thyroid problem. Isn't that the oldest fat excuse in the book? I have an underactive thyroid...well, we shall see. The snow is melting so it will soon be time to take piglet on daily walks. That should help.
3/23/2007

Fat Chihuahua

So how much should a chihuahua weigh??? I'm not talking about those teacup varieties, either because they aren't the real deal and are not acknowledged by the American Kennel Club (AKC). The accepted breed standard disqualifies any dog over 6 pounds or under 3 pounds. Unless your chihuahua is supposed to be a show dog, it doesn't matter as long as she's healthy. My vet says that there are weight variations for pets just like their are weight variations for people. Some Chihuahuas had bigger parents and so they are likely to be bigger.

That being said, Chi-Chi is fat. She is starting to look like a football with legs. Here she is looking very football-like.













She is 3.5 years old. She was a very thin chi for the first year that we had her. We went on a trip for 3 weeks and when we came home, I swear she looked enormous. My dad definitely overfed her. Well, here it is 1 year later and she is chunkier than ever.

We were just at the vet on January 30, 2007. She was having some pain when she moved backwards so I took her in. Of course, by the time I was able to get an appointment, she seemed to be in no pain. I was worried that her weight was causing the problem. The vet said she weighed 13.8 pounds. The vet's biggest concern was that I was feeding her and Pinky just once a day. She told me to break up their food into two meals, giving them less. I brought the ingredients of Chi-Chi's dog food and she said it wasn't the food that was making her fat. It doesn't matter if I bought diet food or not because if she is getting snacks during the day, that is going to be the culprit.


I know for a fact that both dogs are getting snacks and tidbits during the day. She advised that we cut out all snacks immediately. Feed her 1/4 cup of food twice per day and then they would re-weigh in May when she comes in for her annual check-up. She should show a loss by then. If not, they will do blood work on her to see if she has a thyroid problem.

I weighed her last night on my scale and she weighed 13.2 pounds. Because it is a different scale, I don't know if she really lost any weight at all, but at least I have a starting point for our home scale. I shall weigh her once a week to see how she is doing.

Good News for Pinky

Dr. Boren called from the animal hospital to let us know that Pinky's urine test came back and it was good. No signs of a urinary tract infection, which we must avoid so that she does not get those stones again. It was such a relief and at least we know that the diet change is working.

I need to collect another sample in 4 months. Yikes!!! It took me so long to get this one, that I think I ought to start collecting now! Well, at least I know how do do it. I just have to give Pinky a lot of tea and then follow her out in the yard. Of course, in 4 months it will not be cold and so the urge to pee immediately may not be there. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.


1/20/2007

Psycho Chihuahua

Pinky is a total pyscho when it comes to wrapping paper. She loves to rip it and tear it the shreds. This is a photo of her just after she tore up paper from my daughter's birthday. Once she is done with the ripping, Pinky gets into a frenzied state. This frenzy makes her run around the house like a lunatic. I captured this one as she was tearing around the dining room table. As you can see, she is airborne here and is chasing my other dog, Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi was less than thrilled to be the object of Pinky's attention at this moment.

Me 1, Pinky 52

I DID IT!!!

I resolved to extract urine from Pinky by 12/31/2006 and I am happy to say that I did get that accomplished. As you can see from the title of this post, there was much work on my end in order to get the task completed.

The animal hospital gave me a bend-able Dixie plate-ish rectangular kind of container to catch the pee. It looks sort of like a french fry holder that you would get on the boardwalk at the shore. I attempted to use this many times with no luck. I started to fold it upwards so it would easily fit through her legs without touching her. I was able to get it under her, but as soon as I did, she would stop peeing.

It got to the point that when I was following her around the yard, she would just sit down on the cold ground. I suppose she was thinking that she could outwait me, but she thought wrong. On 12/29 I went out at 4:00 am when they went out for the first pee of the day. I figured that with their full bladders coupled with cold air, I would have a much better chance of getting the pee. Pinky kept squatting and running to get away from me.

On 12/30 I was able to get 2 drops. Literally, two drops of pee. I really didn't think that was going to be enough, but I poured it into the bottle that the animal hospital provided and refrigerated it.

Time was running out, so I resorted to drastic measures. Both of my chihuahuas love tea. Yes, hot tea (a post for another day). Yes, I know that I spoil them, but lets move on, shall we? I brewed a giant cup of blueberry tea and added milk to it. Pinky was climbing up my leg to sit on my lap just to watch me drink the tea. She was starting to drool. I let her slurp from the cup. She drank deeply from the giant vessel. I let her drink and drink. I even let Chi-Chi have some, but Pinky got to finish it up. Then I waited 15 minutes and opened the sliding glass doors to let them into the yard.

I was right behind Pinky with my crazy french fry holder. No sooner had she cleared the last step of the deck than she went into squat mode. She didn't even sniff out a good place to go. I was right there and positioned the container perfectly. She peed and peed. I had my sample! Woo-Hoo!

Pinky 20, Me 0

Pinky had some medical issues earlier this year. As a result, we had to change her diet to some specially formulated food. Luckily, she actually likes to eat this food, so that has not been a problem. What has been a problem is that I was supposed to have brought a urine sample to the vet to ensure that the food is working properly. I have been unable to obtain a urine sample from her.

Why is that? Well, she is rather skittish. I have taken her on several walks and every time she squats to pee, I am right there with my mini Tupperware trying to shove it under her. As soon as I get there, she stops peeing. She is quite adept at this dance by now. I have changed containers, but still with no luck. I estimate my attempts at 20 and I have been skunked each time.

I MUST get this sample. I know I can bring her to the vet and they can extract a sample from her, but that will cost beaucoup bucks. Since the sample doesn't have to be "pure" the vet suggested I save some dough and get it myself. Up til now, the attempts have been fruitless. I am determined to get this pee sample. I am setting a deadline of obtaining it by December 31st, 2006. Wish me luck!

When a Pet is Sick

Those of us with pets know a love like no other. My Chihuahuas were my first babies before there was ever a two-legged baby in my life. Boy did I treat them like babies too. I would carry them around as if they couldn’t walk on their own and I cuddled with them and gave kisses and just spoiled them in general. In return I had two fiercely loyal companions who charged to greet me at the door every day when I came home. They leap into my lap as soon as I was seated. I was rewarded with sweet and sometimes not so sweet doggy kisses. So when Pinky first got sick, I was terrified.

She is a part of me and I simply could not imagine a day without Pinky in my life, and yet that is what I had to contend with. What ifs could drive a person insane, I know, but the reality was that I could lose her. I was not ready for that. Then I was wondering how Chi-Chi would react to not having her older sister around.

Pinky was only 9 years old and had lots of years left in her. She started having pee accidents in the house. This was unusual for her, so I knew something was wrong. The vet thought she probably just had a urinary tract infection (UTI) and prescribed anti-biotic and took a pure urine sample from her bladder. He cautioned that it could be a sign of something more serious like bladder stones.

She started the meds, but I didn’t see a huge improvement. The vet called to say that her tests came back positive for a UTI, so the meds he prescribed should be helping. I said that she was still peeing in the house only now it seemed like she was having trouble peeing. He scheduled a sonogram for Pinky to see if she had bladder stones.

The bad news was that she did have bladder stones, five to be exact. He recommended surgery to remove them and we decided to leave her at the hospital and have the surgery done immediately. She came through the surgery just fine and the stones were really pointy. She must have been in a lot of pain and never let on.

The stones were sent out to see what they were composed of which would tell us how she needed to be treated. Sometimes it would require medication and sometimes a change in diet, but the composition of the stones would let the vet know. The results took weeks to come back and they were mixed. It was highly unusual for the stones to be made up of different substances and that’s what we had.

I had to bring her in for some blood work to ensure she didn’t have liver disease. And no, thankfully, she does not. We are treating her now with diet. She is eating a special dog food and I have to get urine samples to see if the food is helping.

The good news is that she certainly seems fine right now. She actually likes the prescription dog food, which is a miracle because she is a fussy eater. What is the bad news? I had to contemplate a life without Pinky. It is not a happy place and I hope I don’t have to deal with this for years.

Fleabag!

My dogs have never had fleas. I used to put these chemicals on them to prevent fleas. However I stopped using this last year because Pinky had a bad reaction. She was doing all of these odd movements. I don’t just mean trying to get the medicine off of her, because they both did that, but she was doing these jerky motions. It scared me and I bathed her to try and get the meds off. Chi-Chi seemed unaffected.

Someone told me to give the dogs garlic pills. It is a natural flea inhibitor. Guess they don’t like the smell of garlic, kind of like vampires, huh? Pinky LOVED the taste of the pills. Now the pills are very big pills. They crumble easily, so when I tried to cut them in half, they powdered. She ate them without the aid of peanut butter, which is indeed rare. Normally I have to hide the pills in cheese or peanut butter to get them to eat the pill, so I was happy she ate them like a treat.

Chi-Chi, on the other hand, did not like the smell at all. Even doused in peanut butter, she would only eat part of the pill. I’d find the other half, and sometimes all of it, under the couch with the peanut butter licked off. I thought about crumbling it in her food, but then I figured that she wouldn’t eat her food, and as much as she needs to slim down, I didn’t want that.

When Pinky had her bladder problem, I stopped all the supplements I was giving them for fear that the supplements were causing her stones. This was in May-June. So I got out of the habit of giving them their all-natural flea repellant. Do you see where this is going?

I notice Pinky was scratching a lot. I pulled her fur to see if I could spot a flea and I didn’t see any. Still, I decided that I’d better give them a bath. They both went into the sink for a bath, but all I had was regular doggy shampoo. I didn’t have flea shampoo. Why would I have that? They never had fleas!

I kept them both off the bed for a few days, which was a feat in and of itself. Pinky was easy because she cannot jump onto the bed. Do you know how many times a night I had to deflect Chi-Chi as she attempted to hurdle herself up there? 4-5 times every night. She was a persistent doggy!

I’m petting Pinky a few nights later and I feel something hard on her back. I literally had to pull it off of her. It looked like dirt. I kept petting her and I kept finding more and more of it. I sat her on a piece of paper and started brushing her and this dirt was coming off. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t good. I examined her again and then I saw it. A FLEA. It was too quick for me to get it off of her. I figured that the dirt I pulled off was from the flea and it turns out that is a telltale sign that your dog has fleas.

I gave AR a list of things to buy: flea shampoo, flea spray for the room and flea dip. I remember years ago they had flea dip that you would put on your dog and it would get the fleas off. I also started the garlic pills again and settled on only giving Chi-Chi half a pill since that was all she would eat anyway. I checked Chi-Chi, but she did not have the dirt on her. I didn’t see any fleas either.

The pet supply store recommended a flea & tick liquid that you put between their shoulder blades. It was a different brand than I had used in the past, so that was purchased along with the room spray. They refused to carry flea dip as it has been known to cause blindness in some dogs. They also advised not to use the medicine and the flea shampoo, just one or the other or the dogs will get over-medicated.

No bad reactions from either dog, I am pleased to say. Within three days, the flea dirt is now gone from Pinky. Chi-Chi still is dirt free. Poor Pinky felt so rejected though because I refused to pick her up and tote her around the way I normally did, plus she wasn’t allowed on the bed even though she let me know every morning and evening that she wanted to come up. I had to tell her to Go TO YOUR BED and she was not pleased.

Lesson learned. Don’t stop flea treatments during flea season!