Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Natural Flea and Tick Spray…Day One Hundred, Seventy Seven

By

Flea and tick treatments are very costly, and in my opinion they are not healthy for your dog.

The health factor is more important to me than the money factor, although I don’t mind saving when I can. 🙂

I use Bug Off Garlic for my dogs, but I also use a topical spray when we go outside of the yard.  I have tried a couple of natural sprays that we found at the pet store and online, they work pretty good but they are somewhat expensive and then if you ordered online you have the added cost of shipping.

There is a wonderful woman, Sandy who has guided me throughout the raw dog food program and she gave me this flea and tick recipe to make at home.  I’ve just made up my first batch and will be trying it out this weekend in New Hampshire, but in the meantime I thought I would share the recipe here.

You need two lemons sliced thin, one sprig of rosemary, one quart of boiling water and three drops of Tea Tree Oil, which I picked up at Wal-Mart.

Place the lemon slice and the sprig of rosemary in a two-quart glass container and cover with the boiling water.


Let the mixture sit overnight. I forgot last night so I mixed it up this morning and let it sit in the fridge all day.

Squeeze the juice from the lemons into the container, transfer the mixture into a spray bottle.  I put a couple of the thin slices of lemon and half the sprig of rosemary into the bottle as well.  Add your three drops of Tea Tree Oil and shake the mixture up.  Keep the bottle in the fridge.

This has to be applied daily, but it is inexpensive and has a light fragrant smell.  I will let you know in a future blog how this works!

For The Love of a Dog…Day One Hundred, Seventy Six

By

I had a disturbing text from one of my (surrogate) children today.  The ‘conversation’ went like this:

The Quiet One:  (my surrogate kid) “Irresponsible people should not be pet owners!”

Me: “Oh Jesus!  Is the animal hurt?”

TQO  “No he’s ok, well physically; he was abandoned.  My bro’s roommate found a new family for Hachiko because he needed more than an apartment to be happy.  The pound called and said they found him and he’s homeless.”

Me: “What pound? What kind of dog? How old?”

Now I’m praying, please let it be a lab because I can call my friend Ann and she will find a home for him.

TQO “He’s in Washington.  I believe he’s a year and a half.  He’s a Chow, German Shepard mix.”

Me: “Oh, if he was in CT we could do something!

TQO “I know it’s sad.”

So tell me, why do people take dogs that they 1) don’t want 2) have no idea on how to take care of 3) invest nothing in and HOW can they just give the dog up?

What can WE as dog lovers and owners do to help educate people regarding the responsibility of dog ownership?

Kristine at Rescued Insanity has a great idea to have a page where people can post questions or get reassurances from other pet owners, read her blog about it here.

Then let me know what you think and share any ideas YOU might have.

I can't imagine life without...Delilah.

Knock Knock…Day One Hundred, Seventy Five

By

I was sitting on the couch, we had just finished dinner and I was contemplating what I was going to blog about today, when my topic was handed to me, with a knock at the door. (Okay, it was really the doorbell but that just didn’t flow.)

We all peeked out the window to see a young lady standing on our door step.

I said to Chet, “Do you want me to handle this?”

He replied, “Yes.”

The young lady (Rachel) standing on our doorstep, was soliciting donations for the Clean Water Action group.  (Incidentally, Clean Water Action group is currently in a facebook competition, so if you could go and like this page it would be awesome!)

While I was filling out my name and contact information, Rachel said, “That’s a cute dog you have there.”

“Thank you” I said. (Like I actually had something to do with his good looks.) “Actually there are two of them.”

Yes, there they were sitting like very good dogs at the top of the stairs.

Whenever someone comes to our door, we always try to have the dogs sit and wait.  They really struggle when it is someone they know and love (try getting through our door when you are loved by our dogs!) But if Chet is in charge, they usually sit.

I then poked my head in the door to see if Sampson could come down and say hello.  As soon as I said his name, his body was already in motion.  Naturally monkey see, monkey do, so Delilah came too.

The important thing to me, is that they waited until they were allowed to greet our visitor.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...