I'm drawing a blank on which movie had that line in it, but I can relate to the sentiments.
I caught Beryl this morning and gave her a bath with the ultra soothing (but not flea-killing) shampoo. When I put the shower head to her, it looked like she was just freely bleeding. Poor baby. I put the shampoo on her and just rubbed and scratched her and talked to her for half an hour, then rinsed and rinsed. The tub was full of fleas; the towel was full of fleas; and Beryl was still full of fleas. So I took her out on the front deck in the sun and flea-combed her as well. Tons of fleas came off her. I combed until I think they were mostly gone (when you do this, you put the hair and fleas in soapy water to contain them and leave them there. Eventually, they will drown). Her skin looked MUCH better. I could tell because I could see it where the hair had fallen out.
We're going to the vet-probably on Monday-to see about a cortisone shot and if there's ANYTHING else we can try. Anyone just looking at her would think, "poor neglected doggie", but she's really not. We feed her every day but she just doesn't eat much. We put eyedrops in when we can catch her and bathe her as often as we can get her into the bathroom. At the moment, she looks pretty good, but by tomorrow morning, she could be right back where she was when we started this morning.
Weirdly enough, she still has her tail hair. When Niki got to this point, her tail was completely bald but she still had plenty of body hair. Beryl is the opposite.
Well, gotta get cracking... I've cleaned the fleas up out of the bathroom, but there's still tons to do around here. Z is going off with Uncle Matt to the city pool for an afternoon of cool, wet entertainment. Maybe I can get something done!
5 comments:
Ohhhh poor doggy!!!! :( Oh poor poor doggy. Oh yes get a cortisone shot and maybe the vet's have some bath they can give that completely gets rid of them?
When did they come back? As soon as you had to take the frontline collar off? Did you have to take the frontline collar off?
I hate fleas. What purpose do they serve in the circle of life? I really have no idea. I want them extinct.
It only took them a couple of days to come back after the last bath. I only noticed a couple, which given where we live, isn't too bad. But the FrontlinePlus we used was one of those topical, squeeze-between-the-shoulderblades things that's supposed to get in the bloodstream and kill/repel fleas and ticks. Well, it got into her blood stream and messed up her skin. The worse it got, the more fleas there were. I've been trying to catch her for days to bathe her again with this wonderful-for-her-skin-shampoo without traumatizing her too much. I"m also hoping that the shampooing will get rid of any Frontline residue so things don't keep getting worse.
I'm watching for a sign from her that she's ready to go. As bad off as she is now, she's still not telling me she's ready to go to sleep yet. I won't do it before she's ready.
oh poor poor Beryl. How old is she? She has arthritis- any other conditions that makes life difficult/more painful than not painful?
oh, man.
Beryl is 11. Mostly lab and some other stuff - she was a big dog! As a rule, big dogs live 7-12 years though there are exceptions. When she was little, she thought it would be fun to chase a school bus. It didn't hit her, but it did roll her. She was also rather obsessive about frisbee and has an injured ACL (repetitive jumping injury), which was way too expensive to fix (for us). We just switched to balls that she didn't have to jump to catch. She's such an excellent dog. When we finally do put her down, I will write a full obituary!
oh, labs. Labs are so happy by nature no matter what, aren't they? Such sweet soft-mouthed happy to love doggies.
Yes, she'll let you know when it's time. If you have a doubt, she's letting you know she's got some stuff to do yet.
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