In my life I've had, or been around, several dogs. I keep outliving them, but I take no virtue in that: I think they live far healthier lives than I do. Without a doubt they eat better, I see to that.
Today's dog story is about my current dog, Minardi.
!@(Waiting.JPG:L120 popimg: "Minardi")
This is what he looks like when he's looking out the front door. The good news is, you can't see the yard, but you can see his ears. He's listening.
The good news is, for that picture, he isn't chewing. For the past few weeks he's been occupying himself with munching, or gnawing, on the root of his tail. I have no idea why, but I have two guesses: he has fleas or he has a hotspot.
Fleas I understand, and I have some Advantage(tm) that I can sprinkle on him. That means a bath, first, so he may get that tomorrow if I'm feeling hot and dusty. Since it will be about ninety degrees, the outlook for him is good.
But I've heard about these hotspots, too, without ever quite understanding what they are. I don't see any fleas on him, he doesn't scratch like mad, and I have no bites, so that would tend to rule out those guys. What I may do, before it gets hot, is pedal up to the pet store and look over the medicines. I'm sure they have something for hotspots, again, whatever they are, and it may be more than an ice cube.
See? Hotspot .. ice cube. That's a joke. I crack myself up.
Whatever, it's getting a bit yucky scratching his butt when it's all covered with dog spit. He likes it when I do that, and also when I rub his tummy, but he has no idea how much it bothers me. It bothers me enough that I will do what I can to alleviate this problem.
Tomorrow ... back to interesting entries!
Canine Ignorance
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Russ, I can see by your dog's tail that he is a distant relative of my dog, Howie Zimm. There's dingo in that Minardi, somewhere. That's a dingo tail.
Howie also chews his tail if he's troubled by fleas. Advantage has minimized that.
Hotspots are just like if we had mosquito bites that we scratched and scratched. Spreading the irritation, the spot grows and itches. So there's more to scratch and then more to scratch. And with dogs, the hair around the itchy spot gets stiff and even MORE itchy-making (not to mention gross) so the dog enlarges the treatment area ... etc.
Find a product that reduces itching at the pet store, and that contains Bitrex, which tastes really bad to the dog. Minardi won't thank you for it, but it might help.
Thanks for the Bitrex advice. I'll certainly look into it.
Funny thing about the dingo. Mianrdi is a mixed breed and my sister, who's passionate about dogs, calls him his own breed - California Dingo.
Not sure that explains the flowered tongue, though. I blame that on Chow-Chow.
Post a Comment