Aaaarrrgghh! Tick Season Is Here – Day 150

Aaaarrrgghh. Tick Season Is Here

This is not the subject I intended to write about tonight, but I find myself too distracted not to just share my thoughts and feelings.

You guessed it: I was sitting here on the couch after eating dinner tonight when I noticed a tickle on my neck. After quickly checking to make sure Karl was safely ensconced on the other couch, and not making wayward advances (ha), I put my fingers gently up to my neck to carefully pluck whatever was crawling there off my neck and bring it into the light.

I assure you, I let out a loud and plaintive moan. Hoping fruitlessly that maybe it was an ant, or a moth, or just one of those odd little black beetle-like bugs that can sometimes get caught flying ‘into’ you and then crawling ‘on’ you (but which are usually more common in the summer, honestly), my heart sank just feeling its unmistakable tick body and the way their legs just keep moving, moving, moving.

UGH.

This one turned out to be your everyday dog tick, not a deer tick. But those damn deer ticks are so incredibly small, they’re nearly impossible to detect unless you have premier, top-of-the-line heightened skin sensitivity. Which, for the most part, I think I have (at least for those things that cause a crawling sensation). Again,  <<shudder>>.

Evolving My Consciousness

I’ve tried to curb my prejudiced feelings about certain types of creatures, and for the most part, I’d like to think I’ve come a long way for someone whose dad would go after snakes with a spade to ‘cut off their head.’ (I was just thinking about that yesterday and how horrific and unnecessary that knee-jerk reaction was.) My musing was brought on by our discovery of a snake on our walk that had been hit by a car. It had only recently happened, as it was not a ‘zen’ snake (i.e., ‘one with the road’). It was still very flexible and lifelike, so I picked it up and moved it to the side of the road, curled it up, and offered it a couple strands of my hair as an offering for its life.

So, yeah. I’ve evolved significantly when it comes to snakes.

Ticks Are the Ultimate Challenge

But ticks? I cannot paint a squinty, sour, distasteful look more clearly than to simply say I loathe them.

Not only do I loathe the fact that all they do is bite and suck your (or your beloved pets’) blood, but I also abhor them for the diseases they carry. Both Karl and my youngest son, Sage, have contracted Lyme as a result of these vile arachnids. So, too, have both our Boston Terriers. And the toll taken on both humans was exponentially worse than that suffered by our pups – probably because I caught it in my dogs almost immediately upon onset of symptoms. My guys? Not so easily diagnosed.

It is difficult for me to comprehend the grand ‘point’ of ticks. They are parasites – in the worse sense of the word. I suppose there’s a good chance I’m being short-sighted. Or just ignorant. Maybe they exist to provide delicious meals to chickens and opossums, both of which enjoy eating them immensely. But surely they could subsist on grubs or other delicacies?

The Diseases They Carry Make Me Want to Invest in a Flamethrower

But for me, after seeing my husband act like he was having a seizure and suddenly become so sick that he could not stand up, and my son lose an entire season of track (twice – a couple years apart) and be knocked flat and nearly convulse when his blood was drawn, I draw the line.

Not Your Father’s Ticks

The dogs are the biggest culprits in bringing them into the house or getting them on us, and that’s true in spite of how careful we are about not letting them venture into the weeds. Ticks in recent years have become insanely adept at hitching rides home. It is as if the ticks quite literally jump from the grasses lining our country roads onto our dogs.

If Spartacus goes over to the side of the road to mark his territory in the springtime, I can immediately pull him close and pick off two, three, six, seven ticks off him. Just from veering toward the grasses! These devil beasts are hard to see on the pups’ dark coats. But I cannot imagine how awful it must be for people whose dogs have long coats. Oh man. Just the thought grosses me out.

I am making a visit to our veterinarian tomorrow and investing in those collars that came out about two years ago.  I think they’re called Seresto? We tried everything to keep the ticks off the dogs, to no avail. Every natural, non-chemical, non-toxic remedy or prophylactic we could try. But nothing worked. So, while reluctant, I am going nuclear.

I feel bad putting those chemicals into our dogs (and Cletus – the one cat who insists on going outside). But I cannot abide the risk of Lyme or the associated co-infections that can be spread through ticks.

I’m bummed. But with all the recent warm weather we’ve enjoyed, I knew the day of reckoning was at hand.

Be ware.

(T-961)