High School, Pre-School, & Diapers: An Itchy Tail

We have been considering getting another dog for probably about a year now.

Libby is 10 years old and is starting to show her age. We like the idea of getting a new puppy while we still have a dog, in hopes that the older one will sort of show the puppy how things roll around the house!

Jeff has always wanted a Basset Hound, so we've searched a little here and there online, a couple times finding some new litters for sale.

But it just hasn't worked out and we always have chopped it up to the timing not being right for us.

A few weeks ago I was looking online and found that there were a couple new litters out there.

Hmmm...I thought but didn't pursue it.

Then on the first day of school, Jeff was home and we took Emmy to visit Ma (Jeff's mom.)

She is a big dog lover. We started talking with her about how we'd like to get a dog before we replace the flooring in our house, how we could fit it into our busy lives, etc...

She had some good ideas and upon arriving back home, I hopped online again.

I emailed two breeders.

One responded right away saying that she had one male left and would give us a good discount if we didn't need AKC registration.

Then she texted me his picture...

I literally teared up over his cuteness and so did Jeff after I passed the phone to him!

That evening we sat down with the kids, telling them we had some exciting news...

Dominic was knocking his head on the table in disgust, thinking we were pregnant again!

Everyone was very excited to hear that we had a DOG joining our family and before we knew it

we were thinking up names and Dominic and I were planning a trip to Fresno to pick up our new little guy.

Jeff was to stay home with the kids, seeing as how it's a good 3 hour drive each way to Fresno.

Here's Dom holding him for the first time...!

We had brought our crate with us and a new pillow for him, but just couldn't bring ourselves to put him in for the ride home. So I drove and Dom held him on his lap.

The puppy had no problem riding in the car...slept the whole way.

Let me tell you! We had some excited people waiting at home for us!

Everyone wanted to snuggle and play with the little guy, well except for Libby.

She was pretty indifferent.

After a couple hours of getting aquainted we put the kids to bed and I sat down for some puppy snuggle time. I noticed some bumps on his skin and asked Jeff to come take a look.

Those were not bumps...they were TICKS!

That's right...deer ticks...ALL over our little guy and God only knew where else they now were in the house.

We spent hours plucking and crushing each tick off his body with a pair of tweezers.

I held him and Jeff did the dirty work.

It was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life!

We thought we got them all, gave him a bath, and put him to bed.

He slept all night though!!!

It was a good thing because little did I know that we would be battling those things all week.

Every time we combed through his fur we would find more, even though we had treated him with Advantix on Monday. We found well over 50 on his little body throughout the course of the week!We spent the whole week vacuuming, cleaning up poo, pee, and ticks, doing laundry...everything in hot water, checking the kids bodies, each other, and Libby.

I am still exhausted.

And itchy.

I cannot tell you how itchy I have been, paranoid that one is on me.

We signed up for the poop and the pee and the chewing things up.

We even signed up for possibly not sleeping through the night for a while.

WE DID NOT SIGN UP FOR TICKS

thank you very much Emmanuel and Elizabeth Ramirez of Fresno!!

But I am happy to report.

I hope.

That we are finally tick-free!

And the little guy thanks us by sleeping through the night...EVERY NIGHT!

I never have had kids who sleep through the night...but our puppy does!