Hey! Listen up here folks, I gotta let y’all in on somethin’ that’s got my fur all in a tether! The other day, me and My lady was out enjoyin’ a nice walk and I heard some human complain about her dog. She said, “My dog is just scratching and scratching and he is about to drive me nuts! I don’t know what his problem is, I use flea meds!”
Hmfff! My lady wouldn’t let me get close enough or I would a gave her an earful! Drivin’ her nuts? Well, it ain’t no picnic for us guys either to be all itchy and there ain’t a darn thing we can do but scratch! It’s kind a our way of sayin’, “Hey! Somethin’ is wrong here.”
photo credit: krissen via photopin cc
The Itchin’ and Scratchin’ Woes of Fleas and Allergic Dermatitis
Have any of y’all ever had a skeeter bite right in the spot ya can’t reach? Itches like crazy don’t it? And you bout go crazy cause ya can’t get it all itched out? Yeah, well, us fur guys feel like that too, but at least you guys can ask a buddy to scratch where you can’t.
And sayin’ you use flea meds is about as funny as y’all figurin’ a skeeter won’t get you cause you have those stinky candles burnin’. If you take us outside or around other dogs, chances are that one of them dang fleas is gonna jump right on. He may even take a good old bite before he realizes we been doctored for fleas.
Did y’all know that one flea can lay 50 eggs a day? And they are so itty bitty you won’t even see em. So even if you find that one little old flea on your dog, there’s probably 50 more waitin’ to start hatchin’ in about 36 hours.
The Mamma flea bites us and sucks our blood to feed herself and all them eggs. Did ya also know that the bite can cause us dogs to itch even worse cause we are allergic to the fleas slobber? (Sorry, My lady says it’s saliva, but it’s slobber to me!) Anyway, this is called, allergic dermatitis and it’s a real nasty skin disease.
You will know that your dog has this problem cause he will chew on his back by the tail and sometimes he will holler and whine. He can lose his hair and get big old scabs there too. It really is miserable…much like you humans havin’ them chicken pox or that poison ivy stuff.
I just wanted to tell y’all this so ya know to do something when your dog starts to itchin’ and hollerin’. He’s just askin’ for help to make the itch go away. Some a that flea and tic medicine you put on us works and some don’t. Some kills the Momma flea but leaves the eggs to hatch and bite us some more. If you’re not sure what to use, ask your vet or better yet, hang out here with us. We’ll talk about ways to battle them fleas and other itchy critters some more!