Brody

Brody

This is Brody.  We also tried out the names Lucas, Henry, and Wagner.  He is a seven week old yellow/white lab.  He is a big baby.  I mean BIG.  He is almost 18 lbs. already.  And I mean BABY.  Lots of whining if anyone leaves the room.  Lots of whining in general.

He is a lazy little stinker.  He does a lot of sitting and laying, not a whole lot of running and pacing like most dogs do.  He sits when he eats.  He sits when he drinks.  When we take him outside, he plops his chubby little butt on the ground and take a few seconds to get up and wander around, looking for a place to pee.  He will run around with Sam, and he does chase, but he is mostly slow at pretty much everything.  He climbs the porch steps one paw at a time.  He is so cute, and the laziness probably makes him even cuter.

My big concern with Brody:  He arrived at our house with fleas.  They had bathed him right before Dave had picked him up, but we through him in the sanitary tub immediately.  We soaped and rinsed, and soaped and rinsed, and soaped and rinsed, and combed and combed.  we added salt to the bath water because we heard that would help.  We found quite a few fleas, but most, if not all of them, were dead.  The only thing I am concerned about now are any eggs that may have been missed.

Eucalyptus

I called the vet, and they suggested Capstar and Frontline.  Capstar is a pill that will kill any adult flea on them within 5-10 min.  Frontline is to repel any more from jumping on board.  Well, I gave both dogs a pill just in case any had jumped on Sam.  But after reading lots of web pages stating that Frontline isn't even safe for your dog, much  less for kids to be around, I could not in good conscience expose the household to that dangerous chemical.  So I read a few pages on natural flea alternatives.

Ask.com said to take 1/4 t. of eucalyptus oil and mix it with 8 oz. of water and spray it everywhere, shaking the bottle for each spray.  the scent repels the fleas, and hopefully drives them out of the house.  Next they suggested buying actual eucalyptus branches and cutting them up the fit in little satchels to place around the house.  The branches can be found at craft stores.  Finally, wintergreen oil can be mixed with water (same ratio) and sprayed all over.  This oil actually kills the eggs.  The site said to use the wintergreen every 3 months.  I am not sure why--maybe it is irritating to the dogs' skin.

Well, obviously I did ALL of the that.  My house smells good, and I have funny little bags of colored sticks and leaves all over my house.  And with what I had left over I made 2 bouquets of the branches, one in the living room, one in our bedroom.  And...  I took a few extra sticks and threw them under our dresser and in our closet.  As much as I hate fleas, I hate fumigating my house a tiny bit more.

I have been spraying both of those oils everywhere.  We have not seen a single flea since the morning after the bath, and even those were dead.  Not only were they dead--they were flat.  Fleas are fat, these looked as if everything had been sucked out of them.  That seems like something that the salt may have done, so hopefully it did the same thing to any eggs and larvae as well.

UUGGHH....  fleas.....  

Lord, please protect my family, house, and dogs from fleas.  Please keep them all safe and healthy.  And, Lord, I pray that no chemical means will need to be used.  Thank you, Lord for Your protection.