Tag: Spike

TIME OUT

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It is time for one of these.  A quick break from trip posts.  For this:

Paul has this dream of putting Spike in a bag or basket and riding around town with him.

Training has been going well so far.

Dog days

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Summer

is

here.

And with it comes 90+ degree weather plus humidity.  Fortunately we have friends with pools.  And for those of you who don’t know what Ale 8 is, you should come to Kentucky and find out.

Next post will be a full trip update, promise.

Garden update

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I couldn’t even write about it when it happened like 3 weeks ago because I thought the blog would be getting too redundant, but after our last replant (after the greenhouse blew over for the second time), we had put our only surviving plants on the picnic table, and I walked outside to find said survivors spewed across the yard and Spike chomping on the biodegradable pots.  I really lost it and almost killed him, but Paul and I finally figured out a solution (5 attempts too late.)

A shelf.  In the yard.  Where the plants can get sun, and Spike can’t reach them.  Success.

Methrat

~ meh ~ 7 Comments

There is a big tree in the corner of our yard.

Last night Spike was going ballistic under the tree and wouldn’t come out, so we guessed he had cornered some animal under there.  I started to freak out because possums and raccoons are rabid.  And because Paul was in his boxers, I was sent outside with the head lamp to deal.

I stood next to the tree yelling Spikes name, but that did nothing.  At first glance I couldn’t see anything.  So I got down on my knees and shone the light between the branches and saw…this:


Its face was too short to be a possum, but it was almost the size of Spike (the above illustration is drawn to scale).  It was like a gigantic, hideous, deformed rat.   It was…So. Ugly.

I let out some noise between a gag and a shriek and jumped up to find a big stick/yell at Paul that he’d better get out there.  As I ran towards the corner of the yard to get a stick, Spike stopped barking and that creature started making these god awful, other-wordly screeching noises.  I started screaming “OH MY GOD HE’S EATING IT!  SPIKE IS EATING THAT THING!”

About 30 seconds later, as Paul emerged from the house shirtless in jeans with a broom, Spike came trotting out from behind the tree, like nothing had happened.  We searched him for bite marks or blood or saliva, but didn’t find anything and promptly threw him in the bathtub.  So.  Gross.  God knows what our neighbors thought was going on.

We still don’t know what that was (Paul’s mom said it had to be a possum, maybe a baby one), and this morning we went and looked outside and there was no carcass there, which means it is still roaming free.  Now every time I hear a bump in the night I think it’s that thing.  That rat on roids.  Or more likey…meth.

In the doghouse

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Somebody has a new home.  Though the exterior paint job isn’t complete, Paul built this palace for Spike during his Spring Break, complete with carpeted interior.

Unfortunately a storm’s coming tonight.

Batten down the hatches.

Update: External doghouse paint complete.  And fierce.

And the insides stayed dry through the storm.  Success.

Tick tock

~ meh ~ 2 Comments

According to the vet, it is not tick season.  So it was weird that last night, as we were getting ready to go to bed, we found 5 on Spike.

I’ve never had to pull ticks off a dog (one of the perks of growing up in Southern California.)  The only tick I’d ever really seen was in my sister’s ear.  I thought it was a spider and the experience disturbed me deeply. 

Some facts about ticks:

  • Ticks are arachnids (so it wasn’t totally ridiculous that I thought the tick in my sister’s ear was a spider).
  • The most common ticks that your dog will pick up in North America is called the dermacentor variabilis, and does not carry Lyme disease.  It can, however, carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
  • The deer tick is the one you have to watch out for, that’s the one that carries Lyme disease and is found mostly in the Northeast.
  • Once ticks get in there they hold on pretty tight (their legs have teeth…so gross), so the best way to get them out is to kill them without squishing them, because then they will let go and fall off.   Certain chemicals will also make the tick loosen their grip.
  • I was talking to a guy this morning that grew up on a farm and apparently it’s ok, so long as you get most of the tick off, if there is a leg left in the dog.  

 Some suggestions from friends and the internet on the best way to kill ticks included:

  • Put a match to the tick and pop it
  • Suffocate the tick with rubbing alcohol
  • Suffocate the tick with clear nail polish

We figured a match to the dog’s head was probably not the best idea, we had no rubbing alcohol, and I couldn’t find my nail polish anywhere (probably still packed).  We tried every cleaning product in the house (most of which were eco-friendly…probably didn’t help our cause), toilet bowl cleaner, and Paul’s cologne.  Suckers WOULD NOT die.  So we did our best with a pair of tweezers, but every single one left their disgusting front clampers in poor Spike.  So gross. 

Time to invest in tick medicine and rubbing alcohol.

Update: my coworker, who grew up in Eastern Kentucky, just told me a story about how she had a tick attach itself to her EYE, above and below.  So when she opened her eye it would block her vision, she said her eyelashes would brush it.  They used mineral oil to get the tick to let go.