We’ve got fleas! The pitfalls of a multi-pet home

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 18, 2009 . 1:40PM

Who did it? Who got close enough to one to let it near them and create the havoc in my home that spread to every one of the other dogs and infested them? The plague that has hit my home is known as FLEAS. Yep. I feel dirty. Gross. Icky beyond belief. But, I’m middle America. I can’t get fleas!

Lies. Propaganda. If you have a pet that has hair, you, too, can be the proud owner of fleas. A.J. isn’t Pigpen from Charlie Brown and our house isn’t a shack, but our pets are what they are and that is filthy little buggers who love to roll in some grass.

The first clue that you might have fleas is when your dog snaps at it’s own arm like it’s a marinated turkey leg. Your dog may also make the noise “Om nom nom nom” or say aloud “That’s tasty.” You will wonder what the problem is and gently look for ticks while your dog glares at you for interrupting snack time.

The second clue will be the “tag jingle.” The tag jingle sounds like the Salvation Army bell at Christmas time and it will occur at roughly 3am from under the bed, just out of your reach, and continue for around 4 hours while you threaten to take the dog to the nearest foreign country that is willing to eat them. I don’t actually know of any country that will eat dogs, but I am certain there are starving people out there that might think my dogs are tasty. And if not, there may be some hill folk somewhere that do. Who am I kidding? Even hill folk would be angry about the tag jingle.

The biggest clue that your dog has fleas is going to be the one that is going to gross you out. It will make you wince, squint your eyes like you just saw the nasty cup video on the internet (please, for the love of God don’t google that) and turn your head away. It’s called “the butt scrape.” It’s where the fleas have permeated the patookas area and the dogs have failed to reach that area to scratch. It would be like us trying to lick our elbows.

I’ll wait while you try. Go on. Lick your elbow. Did you youtube that? I’d like to see it if you did.

Back to the Butt scrape. The butt scrape is where the dog places it’s forelegs in between it’s back legs and scoots it’s behind across the floor like there’s a sickness and the only remedy is butt scrapin’. People with carpet freak out because “my dog is getting nastiness on the carpet!” People with hardwood, like myself, shrug and figure “what’s the point of that? You’re just looking for a splinter in a place I’m not pulling it out, dog.” However, if your dog is doing this, it’s probably fleas or worms or even anal sac issues (ick), and none of them is a good thing. If you can’t see fleas, it’s probably time to go to the vet.

So, what do you do if you have fleas?

The recommended method is flea shampoo that you leave on for 10-15 minutes, so dried skin that the fleas feed on is removed. Most shampoos also have some sort of insecticide that is going to kill the flea for you.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the pet that’s been affected. The home has been permeated as well. If you have fleas, you’ll need to vacuum the entire house to get rid of any flea eggs that have been laid. If your pet has a bed or sleeps with you or on a rug, those must be laundered and you’re probably going to need to use a spray or fogger to get random eggs that have been laid around the house.

Lastly, you can treat your yard with sprays and insecticides that may help prevent the little buggers from re-emerging.

One note here: Please don’t blame your pets. They didn’t purposely attract the fleas and it’s not their fault they got them. Too many animals are abused by adults that don’t understand the mechanics behind animal issues. If you choose to have animals, then you are choosing to accept that they are going to have issues just like we do. Now go clean your house. It’s a pigpen.

Bronx girl admits roasting kitten; has no remorse

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 12, 2009 . 1:44PM

Cats hate me. I love cats. There is nothing more I want in life than this. Or this(The big cat, not the woman or the little cat). Ok, that’s not entirely true. There are lots of things I want in life more than a fat cat, but a Jabba the Cat is something I’ve wanted for a long time. A cat that will literally try to eat my hand while I feed it; that’s the pet I’d like to have. What? They look fluffy and entertaining!

I’ll take this one from neatorama. She looks nice and scared. She can come home with me.

Here’s what would happen if I took Tubby home, though. She would first pee on my clothes while rubbing on both Leon and A.J. and destroying my dogs and their will to live. Then she’d eat all of my food and pee on my furniture, only in the places where I sit. Every time I bothered to look at my husband, who would be her new human, she’d glare at me with a look that said “I’m waiting until you die so I can eat your face.” Would you like to know how I know this? Check out this page and see the header “Francis.”

The only thing you really need to know from all of this is that I love animals of most sorts. Not all animals. PETA can come hate on me whenever they want. There are certain animals that scare the bejeebus out of me and that won’t change no matter how much paint or food coloring you splatter on me.

I have a particularly tender heart for animals, actually. I’m one of those people that love my pets like family and care about their well-being. So, for someone like me, the internet can be an unusually hazardous place to navigate. It also makes me angry beyond belief and right now my heart is breaking and my temper is lit like Times Square on New Years Eve.

After reading this article, I am troubled. There is no doubt in my mind that the media used the most flippant picture they could find of this young girl, but it’s hard for me to not want to reach through the computer and tell her some things. In the article, the girl, who is 17 years old and named Cheyenne, said that she roasted her ex-roommate’s kitten to death in the stove as a joke.

A joke.

She roasted a kitten alive as “a joke.” Normal people do not consider this “a joke.” This is after they broke into the person’s apartment and trashed it. That was the beginning of the joke. Then they threw the cat into the stove and left it there to burn. The article, written by Lisa Coleangelo, Erica Pearson and Bill Hutchinson states that she was charged with “aggravated cruelty to animals, burglary, arson, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.” They then released her into her mother’s custody, where she obviously has freedom to do whatever she wants in the first place.

Ok, let’s cast a little aspersion on character for just a small second here. Who, in their right mind, considers what this person did a sound idea? A just idea? When people start harming animals in adolescence, it often leads to stronger issues in adulthood. Of course, they don’t mention if she had any kind of mental check, but they won’t release that kind of information. We have to assume they didn’t or, if they did, she checked out just fine.

Where do we draw the line? If someone is 17, almost an adult, and they show this lack of judgment, what does that mean, if anything? We have graduated licenses for those drivers that aren’t quite ready for the responsibility, what about graduated adulthood? Granting those teenagers that show wise judgment the rights and responsibilities of adulthood and putting those that do not on a graduated course that they, ideally, should have already taken in economics, parenting, society and good common sense, in high school?

I know, I know. It’s a strong statement, but I’m feeling strongly about this today. Thoughts?

Animal experimentation on dogs leads to fluorescent puppies

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 6, 2009 . 5:50PM

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a Poky Little Puppy. This was a very mischievous puppy and he couldn’t seem to stay in his yard. Every day, his mother would call for him and tell him that dinner was ready and that he needed to come in, and every day, that little puppy would be out wandering the world. He would dawdle into the house whenever his poky little legs felt like it and would be very, very sad that he was so slow to come home because his little tummy would rumble. There’s a moral to that story. But that’s not this story.

In this story, the poky little puppy wandered to another land, far, far away. A place where puppies aren’t safe. A place called South Korea. And in this place, the Poky little puppy had his DNA cloned and merged with genes similar to those of a sea anemone, which is an underwater creature. This was done by a scientist who said that he was was doing it to produce a puppy that, because of a long lifespan, might help cure human illness. However, what this merging did was TURN THE PUPPY INTO A GLOWSTICK!!!!

For comparison: The glowstick

The puppy:

Byeong-Chun Lee, the South Korean researcher, is not the first to make animals glow. The question here is why? What is the purpose of making them light up like a Christmas tree? Besides wasting money and time on other efforts, you know like those pesky things such as cancer and AIDS. Instead, some of our top researchers are focusing on making animals glow. It can’t be good for the animals and I fail to see how it’s worth our time and money.

Please, enlighten me?