Then we got close to the parking lot on the return loop and I noticed a new spot on Eliza's neck. Not a spot, it turns out -- a tick. And as we were pinching that one off her fur, I noticed another one on her back by her tail. When we got to the car to do the habitual tick check, there was another one on Eliza's forehead and yet a fourth on a back leg. While checking her belly (where she's made to stand on her back legs and reach for the sky), I noticed that she'd stepped in some other animal's droppings and it was all squished between her toes. Ick. No more ticks at least. Then we both looked at Kaibab, black and thickly furred. How in the world do you do a tick check on this dog? Maybe, since Eliza's definitely getting a bath once we get home, what with all the tickness and poopness, it will be easier to check Kaibab if she's wet. Then all her fur would be flat against her and we could probably find her skin underneath.
Wrong. What a mess. Kaibab's fur wet is just a matted ball of harder-to-run-your-fingers-through hair. And even though the bathtub (and me) was covered in tufts of wet black fuzz, I swear she grew more hair once it got wet. So, not easier to do a tick check on a soaked Kaibab. And then she jumped out of the tub and shook and there was hair all over the walls and door and cabinets and toilet at Kaibab level. Once she got out of the bathroom I think she walked around the apartment leaning against the walls too, because the living room was also Kaibab furred up to the suspicious level of her muzzle.
In the end we found and removed a total of six ticks on Eliza and three or four on Kaibab. The bathroom got cleaned and aired. The walls got washed. The dogs smelled like rainbows for a day or two. And we put our trust in the monthly dose of Frontline they each receive.
Just another tranquil autumn day.
