Stories about the little red things that live in my house. By Graham Milldrum.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
A quick photo selection of one corgi’s trip from a stream to a bath.
Pure evil in arachnid form
By Graham Milldrum
Ticks. The only reason they aren’t the worst pest is because fleas exist. They are obscene little creatures, just a hard shell, legs and a blood-sucking, flesh chewing maw.
We keep finding them. We went out for a walk in the prarie. Everyone had a great time. Sal was bounding around like Tigger while Biggs vanished and reappeared in the tall grass. Even Boeing was having a good time, going as far as to leave the path to sniff around. Addy, the guest dog, had a great time stealing the bottle I was throwing for Biggs.
Lurking in the dead grass, shot through with new growth, were ticks. Roughly a million of them, if my emotional response is to be believed. They seemed to be everywhere, crawling about and gnawing away. Even now my legs flinch at the thought, an atavistic response to the beasts. I pulled seven of them off myself, attempting to crush the little monsters between my fingernails.
Pulling off a new tick is a scary thing. Their legs are still running, grasping at skin and hair. Sometimes they have just started to burrow into your flesh. And there’s the fear of infection. But they pop out, taking with them just a little bit of you.
But it’s worse on the boys. It’s the fur. That unique luxurious coat is perfect for fleas. The long fur is a great place to get aboard. Then the flea starts burrowing its way through the luxurious undercoat that makes a corgi such a wonder to pet. There they hide, eating their way into the soft white and brown skin. And they suck and suck, growing larger and larger until they are massive bags of disease, filth and horror.
Bags that are almost impossible to find. The ticks weave their legs into that beautiful fur and they seem to drift through it. So it take upwards of five minutes to find the damn things again. Then it’s a painfully slow process to remove, as you don’t want to leave the head behind. You want to pull the whole thing out.
And crush it, smash it, flush it down the drain. I feel like building a pyre for them.
The new flea medication seems to be helping, but ever trip we make, no matter how much joy the dogs derive, carries with it fear. The fear that I will find one of those damn ticks on one of my boys. And that I will have to hunt it down.
Proper tick removal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mN3HDzCpiU
I will point out that Drs. Foster and Smith use this channel to sell their various products. However, they give excellent advice.
Elijah Run Boat Launch slurp on Flickr.
Sal loved our trip across New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.
Bigg’s theme song.
I find the intensity of the bassist (Tina Weymouth) to match his expression perfectly. That and the contrast between instrument (bass guitar/teeth) and user (Weymouth/Biggs.)
Sally boy, Sally boy, Sally boy!
A common sing-song chant in the Milldrum house.
Corgi snow day (first night)
By Graham Milldrum
Chicagoland bunkered down these last few days to prepare for a major snow. Stores closed early and snowplows plied the streets.
The dogs and I waited for it to come down. A foot of snow meant games in the snow- snow kicking, snowball catching, snow-throwing, corgi-into-snow-tossing and a dozen other games.
It also meant clearing snow, but that was an acceptable cost. The boys and I looked forward to a full fall, one that would give the opportunity for corgi trenches. Most people call them “dug out sidewalks.”
The boys and I know the work only serves to keep the dogs safe from… well, whatever they need to be kept safe from.
A Corgiaddict corgi-napping, perhaps?
Blue Sky and Lillie (by OpenSpaces PrairiePlaces)
Or “An antidote to a leaden sky and hills of snow.”
