Tick Tock

Lemme start this post by saying it was all cause of Dixie... k?

Dixie has this sadistic streak which she inflicts every single day just to make Milo crazyy. Each day they get one rawhide bone. Just one. No more no less... One! Usually around dinner time as we have gotten into this habit of eating dinner, then dog piling while watching tv in the evening. Milo, being the diva dog he is, brings me his bone, places it on or near my hand, and then expects me to hold it while he chews. Spoiled? Possibly. Dixie will calmly sit at or near my feet and watch Milo getting his chew on.

This started out as every normal evening. Bone, drop on my hand, chew it up, get a drink of water, then notice that Dixie hasn't chewed hers, and then begin barking and whining.. cause in Milo's brain, sometime during his chewing and drinking, I've given Dixie a new bone and he didn't get one. Dixie then proceeds to begin S L O W L Y chewing her bone, relishing every single gnaw, licking her lips and oftentimes looking over at Milo and winking (yes, she winks, for realz).

This happens every night...
every.
single.
night.

Told ya, Dixie is sadistic.

So I took pity on the poor diva dog, and started to give him a butt scratch.... Milo gets all into the butt scratch. Its his WORLD. He rolls over, four paws up in the air, arches his back, moans a little, and when you find the right spot, he thrashes his head from side to side and makes these little barking sounds...its sorta like a doggy soft porn flick on the Dog-emax Channel or something.

Last evening's butt scratch was the best apparently... he is shedding his winter undercoat so getting a little help with the shed made him almost wanna tip me I think. But while I was scratching I noticed something on the inside of his back right leg... it was (duh duh duh!!!!) a tick.

Now I have never, ever, ever seen a tick on any animal I have had in my adult life. I was like "WTH???? How?? What??? OMG!!" Milo was like "Woman! Hey, you!! Get back to scratching me!!" Dixie was like "I got a rawhide and you don't!"

First thought? tweezers.
And guess what? that does not work. The little #&^%er wouldn't let go of my baby's skin!! All I was doing was removing hair. Milo was now, not happy.

Second thought? call a friend. Noticed then it was after 10pm, and my momma taught me that you do not call people after 9pm unless someone is dying, ofc momma's training still kicks in every now and again.

Third thought? internet... which I am not sure why this was my third thought... hell, its all I do every single day, but I digress.

Googled "tick on my baby help me out I am going out of my miiiiinnnnnddddd" which resulted in 467,890 results. Amazing, I am not the only diva dog owner out there.

But I found an article regarding "tick removal for diva dog owners who are freaking out cause its almost bed time and if she doesn't get it out she is gonna have to sleep with it and that just isn't gonna happen because what if it likes my blood better than Milo's blood and abandons ship for my Caspar the ghost white legs??"

First thing to try... tweezers. Already told you... didn't work! I couldn't grasp it around the head and mouth and I was merely giving Milo a slow and painful Brazilian.

Second thing to try... rubbing alcohol. Great. I don't have any. But I do have hand santizer which is pretty much alcohol right? I mean if you have a paper cut it will hurt like a mofo for hours and days. So I tried a dab of the alcohol and it didn't work. -_-

By this point, Milo, who already hates the bathroom, is freaking out as every time I leave him and walk in there I come back out with some new torture devise. I should have just put on my leather S&M outfit and be done with it... don't really have one, that you know of... :D

Third thing to try? Liquid soap. Soap? Really... yeah.. ok, cause I am at this point going OUT OF MY MIND and Milo is trying to call a friend no matter what time of night it is. So, some cheap off brand "Aloe Vera moisturizing nourishing hand soap with light moisturizers to keep skin silky and soft" to the rescue, right? I figure at this rate I am just giving the tick a sanitized and soft place to nom.

It suggested a cotton ball to apply... yeah, I do not have alcohol and now I don't have cotton balls. I am the WORST DOGGIE PARENT EV-AH!!! -sob- I have cotton pads, but for the life of me I have no clue which bathroom or drawer they are in and Milo would be gone like a bullet if I was to turn my back on him to go searching. So I grabbed the soap and a q-tip.

Milo is like...Mmmm.. ok, this is not a butt scratch, but after losing 10,087 hair to the metal pinchers and then burning thru 116 layers of skin with that little bottle of nasty smelling stuff this isn't bad...

I think I put about 14 cups of soap on him and then rubbed in circles like the article said. Now, the article read "rub for 5 seconds" which I read "5 minutes"... which is good as if I had really read 5 seconds then I would have been at an all night clinic getting the tick taken off.... but since in my mind I read 5 minutes I just sat there rubbing and rubbing and circling and circling... and voila! the tick let go and stuck to my q-tip! Take that you parasitic b&^%!!!

I flushed it down the toilet... did a victory dance.. and realized that Milo would need a bath to rid him off all the crap I had put on his leg. :(

So I picked him up and told him what a good boy he was, and whilst taking him to the bathroom for a quick doggie shower, I noticed Dixie, still watching the proceedings, her bone between her paw. She looked at me... then looked at 'Doh... then she winked.

Sadistic dog.