We have a problem with possums in our backyard. I saw a really big mama with a bunch of babies hanging off her a few weeks ago. Let me tell you, even the babies are not very attractive.

My neighbor,Pat, has a dog who likes to umm, shall we say, euthanize the baby possums.

One morning Pat got up to find yet another dead little baby on her patio. When she took a closer look she noticed this baby had fleas jumping all over it.

Pat was very concerned by this and immediately put her dog on Frontline so she would not become infested.

What did I do? I thought about getting Frontline at the pet store but I had so many other important things to do (like Blogging) I never got around to it. To be honest, I wasn't that worried. We had never had fleas before so I just figured our dog would be OK.

Wrong!

One afternoon the kids were playing with the dog in the house. Suddenly one asks "What are these little black jumping bugs all over Sydney?".

My Mommy radar was immediately activated. Upon further inspection I made the most shocking discovery.

We had fleas! Yuk.

The dog was banned to the back yard where she sat looking in like a woman who had a scarlet letter placed upon her bosom.

I called the vet. He could get me in the next morning for a grooming appointment but we had to come by that evening to pick up a pill to give Sydney to kill all her fleas.

Did any of you know they had such a thing?

We gave her the pill and within 30 minutes all the fleas on her body were dead. I was a little worried about what was in the pill to do such a thing but the vet assured us it was safe. This surely must be one of the greatest inventions of modern time. Any pet owners should definitely understand what I mean.

Sydney went in the next morning for her grooming appointment. The fleas had eaten her up quite a bit by she looked so pretty and happy when she got out. They even brushed her teeth and clipped her nails. A total body spa for doggies. She thought it was fabulous.

A few days later Zach comes in to me and says that Sydney was bleeding on the side of her face. When I looked I discovered that both sides of her face were bleeding and had pretty deep wounds. We suspected she had been in a little altercation with one of the many little critters that scamper across our yard.

Back to the Vet we ran.

He shaved the sides of her face to figure out what was going on. It turns out she had been bitten so badly by the fleas she had some "Hot" spots that had been aggravated by the grooming process. They were itchy and Sydney had scratched them raw.

To say it was disgusting would be an under statement.

The Vet fixed her up again and this is what she looked like when we brought her home.



She did not find the large satellite dish around her neck quite as amusing as we did. As you can see from the second picture we had been trying to cut it down a little. The thing was so big she kept running into everything and freaking herself out. I finally got it cut down and she was more comfortable.

I felt sorry for her but she was acting so funny we all got a little chuckle out of it. She kept tipping her head and then freezing like she was listening for something. We decided there were three possible reasons for her behavior.

1. Her satellite dish had picked up communication from an alien ship where dog's are in charge and she was determining if she could be beamed aboard successfully or not.

2. She was receiving the signal from a local radio station that was having a best dressed dog competition and pondering whether her neck attire would qualify.

3. She was completely annoyed with those in charge and could not believe she was being subjected to such cruelty.

I am putting my money on #3.

Yesterday the satellite dish was removed. She is healing well and hopefully we will have no more (expensive) visits to the vet any time soon.

Here she is happy as a clam and back to her favorite spot on the couch.


Enjoy your day!

Labels: animals