In my last post about Tick Fever I said I learned tons more on tick fever management from the Vet and friends who also have packs. But before I get to the management, I’d like to talk about why management is important.

Tick Fever is spread by ticks when they bite on prey. The bacterial organism is passed into the host through it’s saliva. However not all ticks carry the organism – Ehrlichia canis.

A tick ingests the organism when it feeds on an infected host. Once the tick is a carrier it will infect and transmit the disease to all dogs it feeds on after. And it doesn’t end here, the bacterium is also passed on to offspring when the carrier tick lays eggs.

This is not a small matter when you realise that ticks can lay up to 3,000 eggs at one time. That’s an army carrying tick fever!

Management of tick fever isn’t easy but it isn’t impossible either. Being diligent, careful and vigilant constantly, will take you a long way in keeping your pack safe. Here’s some of the things I was told to do and I did.

No Hunger:
The sick dog should eat as much as he/she wants as it needs all the nourishment it can get to fight and heal, however make sure to spread the meals.
Cuckoo seemed to be in very early stages of Ehrlichiosis as her appetite hadn’t dropped at all. She ate her scheduled meal and then asked for more. With her medication and healing cycle she needed as much energy as she could generate so I fed her as much as she wanted. But I spread the meals out so she didn’t eat too much at any point in time and throw up. She ate three meals and showed a preference for chicken rather than beef but she was eating her beef quantities too. The chicken I guess was easier for her to digest.
Along with this I was giving her a mug of chicken soup a couple of times through the day too. The soup would give her energy and also hydrate her.

Stay Paranoid:
Keeping all the dogs tick free should be on top of your priority list. Keeping the infected dog tick free above all else.
I checked and cleaned Cuckoo almost thrice a day those days. I watched her like a hawk on walks, making sure to avoid bushes and grass where ticks are most likely to be, and I checked her during or immediately after every morning walk. A tick that bites her and lays eggs would unleash an army of infected ticks in my house.

Short, Clean Walks:
If your dog is up to walking, walk your dog but keep the walk short so as to not tire him/she.
For a while all the dogs were on short walks and on as short a leash as I could manage. I tried and kept them away from bushes as much as possible. Both of these were meant to reduce the chances of bringing in ticks. After all walks were complete I also settled down for a session of checking and grooming all dogs before feed time.
Cuckoo loves her walks so I couldn’t deny her but a short walk made sure that she didn’t get too tired or fatigued.

Cleaning OCD:
Keep your house like a maniac and do it again every day!
I was on a cleaning mania those two weeks. Every piece of bedding got brushed down everyday, every corner got swept and mopped. I usually vacuum once a week but then I increased it’s frequency and did it every alternate day. I sprayed all corners and edges in the house with neem oil and the mop water had large quantities of salt and vinegar everyday. The salt and vinegar work well as dehydrating agents and should kill ticks that fall off as ticks need to stay hydrated to stay alive. Between the neem oil and salt I hoped to avoid any laying of eggs.
The garden was sprayed down with neem oil too. Not only did I spray the trees and plants but also the grass!

Temperature:
Check temperatures everyday!
Normal temperature for dogs is 102F and depending on time of day and activity it could go up to 103 but anything above that is not normal and is the first indicator of tick fever.
I checked the temperatures of all dogs everyday. It is preferred to check first thing in the morning as resting temperature is the best indicator but with William and Max it was difficult in the morning as they were restless for their walks. So everyone else got checked in the morning and they got theirs checked about noon when lethargy set in. 🙂

Medication:
Don’t miss giving medication on time and make sure you are using some external treatment to deter ticks.
Cuckoo was on doxycycline and I made sure to give her her dose everyday without fail.
Apart from this all dogs had Protektor (tick and flea drops) Spot-on treatment put on as a first line of defense. I was hoping it would work as a deterrent for ticks. But I would still check like crazy, everyday and sometimes multiple times a day. It was almost like every petting session was a tick search session.
Usually Che and I are very particular about the dogs baths and renewal of their tick and flea medication. This time with all the shifting I had slipped up and the baths and treatment renewals got delayed. We did get it all done but just before Cuckoo was diagnosed and that was already too late!

If you’d like to know more about ticks, the Tick article on Wikipedia is a great. You can also read the How Ticks Work article on How Stuff Works. For home remedies to keep ticks away here is a list I put together some time back – Home Remedies for Ticks on Dogs

Over all it had been two weeks with shit loads of stuff to do every day but after a couple of days it became routine and I started to even have fun doing it all. 😀

However things changed drastically after Cuckoo’s second blood test. We weren’t fighting tick fever any more but rather auto-immune disease. But that’s a post for another day…

I have in the 5 odd years that I’ve had dogs been repeated told that kids and dogs are not the same, that I shouldn’t compare someone’s kids to my dogs, that dogs are not a replacement for kids, and the like.

Then the other day on an NPR Podcast of TED I heard these lines…
“Children today are economically useless and emotionally priceless”

It made me sit up, it couldn’t have been put across more succinctly. A couple of decades ago couples had children and large numbers of them because it made economic sense. Children worked (the concept of child labour didn’t exist) and paid for not only their keep but also supported the family and added to the kitty. When the parents got old, these same children continued to make economic sense by supporting and taking care of them.

Fast forward a few decades to today; we don’t have numerous numbers of children today (or most people don’t). One reason you’d say is the population explosion but the other is that children don’t make economic sense any more. Having kids is an expensive business, the cost of delivery, play-school, school, college, etc. makes most couples think twice about the number of children they want to have. A lot of them settle for just having one.

Children don’t work anymore, they don’t earn their keep. Instead parents spend tons of money on them in various ways like education, fashionable clothing, latest gadgets, etc. All of that money would still be fine, if it guaranteed ROI. But today most parents are planning for their retirement, they don’t know if their children will take care of them when the time comes.

All parents and couples know this and yet they have a child or children. They spend substantial amounts of their time and money caring for the child. They don’t do all of this for economic gain but rather for emotional satisfaction in various ways, whether it be the forwarding of their genes or meeting societal requirements.

So where am I going with this, why did I say all this, how does it tie in my starting lines; these are questions you might have after reading this but bear with me a while long as I talk now about my dogs.

I live on the out perimeter of the city, which means that I get to live in a larger independent house with a largish garden but I definitely don’t live on a farm. My dogs (and I have 6) don’t have to work for their food, they alert me to the one off snake or every passer-by but they don’t have any really economic purpose in my life.

I spend a fair bit of time and money on the upbringing and welfare of my dogs, definitely less than schooling fees 😀 but still a large enough amount to make people sit up. I would give up almost anything, make just about any compromise when it comes to them.

Yet in all of this I know that my dogs are a bad investment plan. They are most likely to not outlive me; when they pass on they will unhinge me emotionally and will make my pockets a lot lighter before they are gone. And yet I have not one but six. Of course you may think I’m nuts but I think they make me a better person; my dogs make me complete.

Now if you look at what I said earlier…
“Children today are economically useless and emotionally priceless”
Replace ‘children’ with ‘dogs’ and tell me are my dogs any different from your kids? ;P

Photo Credit: Alpha.prim / Wikipedia

I hate ticks. Period. I used to hate them earlier because they seemed to prefer me to the dogs but since the Cuckoo episode, I hate them even more, even on the dogs. I have always been paranoid about them and have kept an ultra clean house to keep them out. [You can read my earlier list of home remedies for ticks to gauge my paranoia. 😀 ] But in the last two months with all the shifting and settling in, I slipped up and the dogs picked up a few of the critters, next thing I know, Cuckoo is diagnosed with tick fever.

I don’t know much about tick fever. Wait, let me correct that. I didn’t know much about tick fever until now and I still don’t know so much. However here’s what I’ve learned from a little bit of reading.

Tick fever is medically called Ehrlichiosis, and is also known as canine rickettsiosis, canine hemorrhagic fever, canine typhus, tracker dog disease, dog AIDS and tropical canine pancytopenia. Yep, that’s a lot of names!

Tick fever as the name suggests is a tick borne disease; it is a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks when they bite (or through blood transfusion) and the organism that usually causes it is Ehrlichia canis. There are various types of tick fever and even several species of Ehrlichia, but the one that is most common and has the most severe clinical signs is Ehrlichia canis, carried by the brown dog tick or Rhipicephalus sanguineous. These are the little critters we see around here in Bangalore and most parts of India.

Tick fever is not limited to dogs, it is also seen in humans, cats and other animals that ticks prey on. It doesn’t pass from dogs to human, only through ticks.

Ehrlichiosis has three stages with varying severity. The first stage is the Acute Stage which occurs one to three weeks after infection and lasts up to a month. The symptoms usually seen at this time are fever and lowered peripheral blood cell or platelet count due to the bone marrow being suppressed. These are the symptoms seen in Cuckoo along with the blood spots or petechiae. Sometimes a lack of appetite, drop in activity levels, bleeding, vasculitis, discharge from the eyes and nose, and/or edema of the legs and scrotum is also seen, but that depends from dog to dog.

The Subclinical phase is the second stage and has no outward signs. This stage can last for the remainder of the dogs life and the dog then remains infected and becomes a carrier of the organism. That said, apparently some dogs can manage to eliminate the disease during this stage.

The third stage of Ehrlichiosis is the Chronic stage and the most serious stage of the infection. In this stage the dog has very low blood cell (red, white and platelets) counts or pancytopenia, bleeding, bacterial infection, ophthalmic and neurological disorders, etc. which could lead to kidney disease. Some of the visible symptoms are weight loss, pale gums, lameness, bleeding, breathlessness, coughing, excessive thirst, excessive peeing, etc. Chronic ehrlichiosis can be fatal.

With tick fever the outcome for dogs in the Acute stage is good, however once dogs reach the chronic stage there is no telling which way it will go as the suppression of the bone marrow and low level of blood cells leads to the dog not responding well to treatment.

The usual treatment for Ehrlichiosis is a six to eight week course of the antibiotics tetracycline or doxycycline. Every week a repeat blood test is done to check on the response to treatment but the dog may take up to a month to respond. In severe case steroids, subcutaneous or intravenous fluids and even blood transfusions may be given.

When it comes to tick fever prevention is definitely better than cure. Keeping the dog and it’s environment tick free is the best way to avoid this pain in the ass infection.

That’s a lot of gyaan on tick fever but reading wasn’t all I did. I went to the Vet and other experts who have more than three dogs or a pack at home and learned tons more on tick fever management. The tons more is in the next piece of this write up – How to Manage Tick Fever If You Have a Pack of Dogs 😛

If you’d like to read more about tick fever, here are some links you might find helpful –
Canine Ehrlichiosis explained on Wikipedia
Protea Animal Clinic’s write-up on Tick Bite fever by Dr W J Grobler BVSc
Animal Health Hospital P.C.’s take on Tick Fever
Health24’s article on Tick bite fever in Humans

***This post got written last week but Che was traveling and I didn’t want to worry him so it was on hold for a bit. 🙂

I’m a little freaked out and stressed right now. Can’t think straight and I’m just going through the motions. I’m writing in the hope that it will help me sort my thoughts and calm me down.

It all started a couple of days ago with Elu peeing her pants… Elu’s our lastest entry into the pack and is just 4 months old – both of these put her in a place where she is figuring her way around the dogs and the pack structure. So, it was inevitable that she would stick her face into one of the dogs while they were eating and get put in her place. Elu of course did it all in style and squealed her head off enough to make everyone run for cover (except Max who was the teacher in this situation).

After all the teaching, peeing and squealing had stopped I stepped in to clean her up and noticed that some of her drying wounds had small boils. Photos were instantly taken and Dr.Ramesh(the Vet) was consulted. He asked me to apply Kiskin and watch for a couple of days. If it didn’t subside it could be mites he said. That, left me worried about contagion in the brat pack.

Elu's dry wounds show boils

Later that night I saw spots on Cuckoo’s underbelly. I had seen spots a day earlier around her neck but at that time I thought it was some rash she had got as usual and had applied Kiskin. Spots on the underbelly though, was odd, a closer look and I found more spots all over her. It was looking like she was getting measles or chicken-pox. I promptly did what the paranoid me does best; took photos and Whatsapp’d them right away to the Vet.

Spots on Cuckoo's Neck

Spots on Cuckoo's belly

Spots on Cuckoo's chest

Morning brought a reply from him asking me to bring her in for a closer check. Taking a dog to the Vet isn’t all that simple in my household. One challenge is splitting Cuckoo from Senti and Buddha who cannot do without her (when I did take her later, they apparently howled and whined for an hour). The even bigger one is that Che and I don’t own a car; yeah yeah I know 6 dogs and no car you say, but we have friends and they are amazing. Some juggling in my head and I started calling friends, and at the first call I hit pay-dirt. (I can’t be thankful enough to Anithra and Chaitanya for always being there for us.)

Anyway all logistics worked out, we headed out with Cuckoo and Elu (figured I’d get her checked-up too) in the evening. I could write an entire other post about Cuckoo going loony in the car but for now it’ll suffice to say that until now she has only traveled in hatchbacks and sedans, so an SUV blew her mind. She was all about the space and all over the place. And trust me, you don’t want to be in an enclosed space with Cuckoo when she is loony; after her, you’ll never be the same again.

Again, I was so thankful for Anithra who took care of Elu so I could deal with the basket-case, Cuckoo. She was upset as a banshee to be in the clinic and even snapped at Dr.Ramesh, something she has never done before. With the muzzle on, Dr.Ramesh summoned up the courage to get close to her face and see the spots on her neck. He didn’t like what he saw I think, coz he turned to me and shot off questions – how long have the spots been there?, have you found ticks on her recently?, is she eating fine?, any dullness?. I answered the questions as best as I could – a day or two, yes a few over the last week or so, eating same as always and asking for more, nope no dullness at all.

What followed next left Cuckoo even more upset. She had a thermometer stuck up her ass and she didn’t like it much. Well, neither did I when it read 104.2F (normal is 102 and below). Dr.Ramesh decided to instantly check her platelet count, which is possible now that Cessna Lifeline has their own lab. Ten minutes later the Doc was holding the results and giving me the look. The report didn’t look good.

Cuckoo's Blood Test Results

All attributes of the CBC test were good but Cuckoo’s platelet count was low, way low. Dr.Ramesh looked at me and said ‘Tick Fever’. And then he saw me lost and muddled and fuddled and duddled and everything else, so he asked me to wait and got out his prescription pad. The spots have definition he said, unlike a rash, and that made him want to check further. The fever and platelet count confirmed his fears, it was tick fever but it was early stages it looked like.

Cuckoo got the needle and her first dose of medication (a shot of prednisolone), while I stood there listening and trying to grasp all that was expected of me in the next four weeks. As long as she ate well and stayed active all is well he said, just don’t miss the medications. Come back in 7 days for another round of blood work and we’ll take it from there.

But it didn’t end there, I also needed to check temperatures of all the dogs everyday first thing in the morning for the next couple of weeks. Sticking a thermometer in (my WHD’s) Senti and Buddha’s ass is all rosy, but try doing that to William and Max, my fully grown adult Golden Retriever and Labrador. Oh boy, oh boy, was I feeling like a lost puppy!

While all this was explained to me, Cuckoo of course vocally made sure her displeasure was heard and felt. When we finally left I’m sure Dr.Ramesh and others at the clinic heaved a collective sign of relief. The silence at Cuckoo’s departure must have been deafening. 😀

It’s maybe why they gave me two bags of cookies instead on one when I was leaving. 😛

Cessna's 9th Anniversary Gift

Two people I haven’t mentioned yet but who helped me immensely were Mom and Granny. They were visiting with the intention of getting some rest and spending time with me but all this stuff happened and Mom was such a rock with I shook like a leaf. I don’t know how I would have left behind Senti, Buddha, William and Max at home if it hadn’t been for them. Mom, as always, You Rock!

I’m learning a lot about Tick Fever and, big dogs and thermometers :P, but more on this in another post.

If you are wondering about Elu, the boils were just a bacterial infection that isn’t contagious and she’ll be fine soon after a round of antibiotics and baths. She was prescribed tablets, supplements and coconut oil. 😀

The last month or so since I disappeared from the blog, life has been quite the Tora Tora (Tora Tora’s that ride at the amusement park that looks like a twirling girls skirt and goes around and up and down at the same time.) – all topsy turvy and just plain crazy but yeah it’s been fun too. 😀

So here’s my long explanation for the disappearance. 😛

We’d moved house in December 2013 and I was hoping to stay put for a bit but five months later just as we were settling down into a rhythm in May, circumstances changed and forced us to move. Actually it wasn’t forced but it worked out for the best.

The owners of the previous house had issues crop up in their life in Goa and they were forced to move back. They were nice people so they didn’t ask us to leave but rather worked out a way so we could all live together. We on the ground floor and them on the first, but 8 dogs in the house had Che and me scratching our heads and wondering how we would survive.

We also knew that they had brought us some time, but a move in December 2014 was guaranteed, so we started putting the word out to friends that we were looking for a house that would accommodate 5 dogs with lots of space for them, far from people so, complains about their noise would be minimal and life in general would be fun.

As things turned out, a friend got in touch almost immediately saying he had heard of a house that might suit us in Hennur. It was the absolute other end of the city, from extreme South to extreme North. We decided to check it out and met Chaitanya and Anitra, (friends of our friend) who also had two dogs. The house they led us to in their layout had us bowled over at first glance. It had a lot of garden space in front of the house, only one immediate neighbour, three bedrooms and loos, two floors,… We loved it.

Going back after the first visit we talked and then talked some more after reaching home. The gist of all that talking was that moving was going to be painful whenever we did it. And if that was going to be so, why wait until December, we might as well move now when we found a house that seemed like it would work well for us.

Well, next thing you know, we had packed the basics, organised the logistics of moving five dogs, booked packers and movers and moved. I can never be thankful enough for my friends and family coz they are just amazing. They jumped in with all enthusiasm and helped us shift, five dogs and all.

The dogs love the place and space. Cuckoo, my jumping queen seems to have so much space now, that the 5 foot boundary wall doesn’t seem enticing enough to jump over. Even her jumping to greet people has reduced with the distractions that the space provides. And the garden provides all of them ample space to dig and get messy while we chase about telling them off and trying to refill the holes. It seems like a losing battle. 😀

We now also have a guest bedroom on the first floor for family and friends [just in case you decide to visit :D] where they can take a few calming breaths away from the dogs and don’t have to worry about waking up to Senti’s licking or Max’s farts. 😛

It’s been almost two months and a lot has happened. One post isn’t enough to write it all so I’ll split it but for now I can tell you we are all having a ball – learning new things, settling into a new rhythm, sleeping out in the sun, scampering when it rains and other such fun stuff.

Settling in is a pain and will take a while but I am hopeful that this time we won’t move again, at least not soon. 😉

[This post is late and should have gone online yesterday but I had a bad migraine and couldn’t sit at the computer long enough to finish and post it. So it’s two posts today. 🙂 ]

There are a lot of days when I feel like I have nothing, I am nothing. Most days it’s a passing phase, and some days it’s lasts for a while but no matter which day, what makes me snap out of it are a list of beings. These beings make me smile and make life feel worth while.

Since my word for the year with ‘G’ is Gratitude, I figured I’d make a list of these beings so I can read it when I’m all down and out and snap out of it and smile sooner. 🙂

Mom and Me years ago

The first person I think I met in this world is my Mother and I’m glad I did. She is selfless, always offering her shoulder or advise when I’m ranty, and someone I still go running to when I’m hurt and upset. The days of scraped knees when she blew on the wound and made it feel better are long gone, but even today she makes me feel better with her magic. She has done so much for me over the years that, nothing I do will ever equate it, an infinite number of thank you’s will not be enough. I have learned so much from this extraordinary woman and I have still so much to learn. She reminds me of one of my favourite songs,

“You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine,
You make me happy,
When skys are grey.
You’ll never know dear.
How much I love you,
Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

When I grow up 😀 I’d like to be like my mother, if I can be even 50% the woman she is, I’d have achieved greatness I think.

My MIL and Me at my wedding

The saas-bahu serials on TV had me wishing from early in life that when I got married I get a good M-I-L. I must have prayed quite diligently coz I did get a great mother-in-law. She is so like my mother that when she’s around I don’t miss my own.

When Che and I got married we had a reception in Kovilpatti, a town near Madurai where Che hails from. The morning after the reception I tentatively stepped out of the room (while Che slept) wondering if I could sneak into the gift room and check stuff out until he woke up. Tip toeing my way across the floor I got to the room full of gifts without encountering anyone but as I stood at the door, my MIL looked up at me from inside where she was sitting in the middle of it all and said, “Ah, you’re awake, can we now open the gifts?”. An hour or so later when Che found us, we were sitting in the middle of gifts strewn around with silly grins on our faces. My MIL became my mother that day, how can she have not. That was one of my first impressions of her and even four years later, she continues to amaze me with all she understands and does.

I’m the lucky bum who didn’t get one mother, I got two. It’s a double whammy!

My Five

I still remember the days when Che and I talked about getting a dog but every time talked, we put it off saying this wasn’t the best time. Then one day in August 4 years ago, during a week of crazy torrential rains, Che found a puppy huddled near the dustbin outside our apartment, shivering. He picked it up and looked around for the mother, when he couldn’t find her he brought the puppy home to dry her off and get some food in her. Fifteen minutes later he was looking at me with puppy eyes that said, please can we keep her. The rest like they say is history.

Cuckoo was followed within months by Sentimeter, and then a year later by Buddha. I didn’t know when one dog became three and then five when William and Maximus joined us too. Today I have five dogs and I’m working hard at keeping that number from increasing. 😀

These five fill my life with such joy, only people with dogs will know what it feels like. When I wake up in the morning I have 5 dogs vying for my attention, so happy to see me, thumping their tails with such vigour that sometimes I worry for the grandfather clock that loses or gains time every morning when they thump it. When I’m down in the dumps and no-one and nothing can make me feel better, these five can make the sun come out again. They know just what it would take to make me happy again.

Even when they do something wrong it’s so difficult to be angry with them. Try it, try being angry with someone who looks at you with such unadulterated love while you are screaming your head off. My dogs are my life, there is nothing in the world I wouldn’t give up for them. Nothing!

Bro and Me years ago when I still could bully him

Making this list, I wondered who else would be on it and one name kept popping up and that’s my brother. The little kid I bullied, who bullied me in turn a few years later has grown into a man I’m proud of. Thoughtful, caring, soft-hearted, kind are just some words that describe him. His is the number on my speed dial coz I know he will always be there for me.

All us Grandkids with Gran on her 90th (except 1)

Then there are all my other brothers (coz using the word cousin wouldn’t be fair to how they treat me). Each one of them going out of their way for me with never a complain. As kids when they were around I’d be exasperated but today when they are around my heart smiles.

All those rakhi’s paid off, eh? 😛

The Entire Family on Gran's 90th

Then there’s my family and friends, who are just such amazing people. Looking back at myself growing up I see just the prick I was [not that am not one now :D] and yet these people have loved me all the way. Could I even ask for more.

Last but not the least is that man I married who makes my blood boil so much some days that I want to scream and pull my hair out and yet he remembers the small things I like, eats bland khichdi everyday without a complain when I’m ill coz if he ate spicy food I’d be tempted. He does things that amaze me and leave me speechless when I least expect it.

We don’t fight like cats and dogs, we fight like a mongoose and snake and yet without him I think life would be empty. Come on wouldn’t the mongoose miss the snake, where’s the fun for the mongoose if the snake’s gone. 😀

Gratitude is the right word, for I’m grateful, immensely grateful for the beings in my life. I must have done some pretty awesome stuff on my last life to have all these people in my life. No one gets this lucky, unless they deserve it. Knowing me I don’t know about that, but I do know I’m damn lucky and very grateful.

Last night as I lay in bed I thought about words that started with ‘D’. It was like a word building exercise and a lot of words came to mind. Define, Demur, Deter, Decline, Delete, Doll, … and it went on. Some words had potential but most just wouldn’t work.

I woke up with ‘determination’ spinning in my head but I wondered as I walked the dogs, what would I write about it. Yes, this year I should be determined to reach my goals et all but really, that’s not fun to write about. Or read about for that matter. 😀 So, I let the post be as I got to doing all I hadn’t finished yesterday.

I have a tick and flea problem. No I don’t mean on the dogs, it’s on me. Ticks and fleas seem to like me more than the dogs. Yep it’s eew, but that’s how I know the dogs have ticks or fleas, I find them on me. It’s why I’m crazy particular about the dogs and house being tick and flea free, I’m getting to almost be an expert on them. 😛

With summer setting in and April showers making their presence felt, ticks and fleas explode. Not that they aren’t there at other times, just that around this time they seem to start to show up with a vengeance. I think it’s the rain and it’s temperature change that does it, that perfect mix of heat and cool that they so seem to like.

Keeping ticks and fleas off the dogs and out of the house is like a life mission for me. I have a routine to my cleaning, mopping, changing sheets and more. And my summer cleaning has been due for a while. Over the last few years I’ve managed to keep the dogs and house relatively tick and flea free. Forget an infestation, just the thought of one sends chills down my spine. Seeing ticks climb walls is like a horror story to me.

So I clean and clean like a Monica. Over the last couple of years I’ve tried, tested and found natural remedies for keeping the little critters at bay. Natural methods give me peace of mind when using them around the dogs. Here’s the routine I follow – I sweep the house to remove the first layer of hair and dirt, then I strip all sheets and start my rounds of washing, all beds get vacuumed and kept aside, then I vacuum all edges and skirtings around the house. This is followed by another round of sweeping before the mopping begins. When all is mopped, fresh sheets are laid out and finally all edges and skirtings are sprayed down.

Of course I do do one or more of the above regularly and on different days but this is my tick/flea regime and all of it happens on the same day for that. The vacuum bag gets cleaned and dusted thoroughly as soon as I finish, and it gets cleaned outside the house at a distance, so even if I did catch a few bugs I don’t release them back inside the house. The mop water has extra salt and vinegar with the soap to deter the critters. And the spray is a mix of vinegar and neem oil to keep the bugs from getting into snugly holes and corners.

It’s a long process, tiring and time consuming. And today it was sheer determination that saw me through it. I felt a few twinges in my tummy in the morning but the thought of the lone tick I found a couple of days back galvanized me, and I just kept going. It’s a relief and joy that I feel now that it’s done. It’s a big to-do off my list.

But determination didn’t only play a part in that. Considering that the routine took me about 5 hours to finish and how pooped I was after it was done, it took a lot of determination to finish this post. I didn’t want to miss a day in my challenge.

So, how can D not be for Determination? 😉

Aside: If you’d like to know more about home remedies for Ticks and Fleas, do read my posts on them. I put them together the last time they freaked me out. 🙂

– Home Remedies for Fleas

– Home Remedies for Ticks

Is that the New Year?

The last couple of months I haven’t been able to blog much. I thought of writing often, there was after all so much to say but with all that was happening it was almost impossible to sit down to write. Let me give you a gist of all that happened in November and December.

But before that, Happy New Year to everyone who reads this. May 2014 bring you joy, peace and contentment. May all you dreams and wishes come true; may all that’s best for you unfold in 2014. 🙂

Che and I had been searching for over a year to find a house that suited us and allowed us to bring our pack of five together under one roof before we saw a place, just after I got back in November. We liked the house at first sight; it had only one bedroom, one bathroom, no doors or cupboards and a high rent but there was a lot of space for the dogs. It worked well for them and we jumped at it.

Big House but only G. Floor is ours

With that started the crazies. Living in a house we owned for over five years meant we had collected loads of stuff that we didn’t use regularly and a lot of what we didn’t need. Packing the house overwhelmed and drove me nuts. Thankfully help arrive in the form of my Mom and sis-in-law before I lost my marbles. Somehow over the month the house got packed and boxed before the movers arrived.

I still can’t believe we emptied the house. It was a big lesson in letting go as I gave away a lot of stuff. Big lesson on not hoarding. I’m a hoarder but I hadn’t realised how big a hoarder until the move. One of my life resolutions now is not to hoard, anything that isn’t going to be used in the near future must be given away. Even if it is something small that hardly takes space, it’s got to go coz I collect a lot of small things that then take up a lot of space.

Anyway we moved on 1st December and there started an all new battle – unboxing. This one am still fighting as we live out of boxes. More important than the unboxing though was getting the house ready for the dogs. Doggie doors had to be built, everything put away, beds and sleeping areas created, the list seemed endless and we went at it one item at a time until we kinda thought the house was ready.

My favourite morning chai spot

Then came the logistics of shifting five dogs from one end of the city to the other. Three cars were needed along with three people to escort the dogs and in-between all of this we had to take them to the clinic too for medicated baths and vaccinations before they got here. While working out the logistics I thought the cars were the hardest part. Turned out the baths were the toughest. The big boys gave us no trouble at all but Cuckoo had everyone’s ears ringing by the time we left with her Himesh Reshamyi rendition from the moment we reached to when we left.

I was so rattled and shook up after being around Cuckoo for three hours that I have to give it to all the stuff at the Cessna Lifeline Clinic for their patience. Special thanks to Pallavi and Lakshman for the awesome grooming job they did.

The dogs all cleaned up we left the clinic with all our fingers and toes crossed to see what would unfold when we put them all in one space at home. Miracles happen, I know coz I saw one that day the 19th of December. We let the dogs loose together and they didn’t kill each other. They didn’t become the best of friends in five minutes but they seemed to find the space to live and let live in that time and I couldn’t ask for more. We all collectively heaved a sigh of relief and joy. It was a milestone in our lives, we had managed to bring our pack together under the same roof. Our family was finally complete and it was worth all the struggle, every bit of it.

Here's what happens after I enter the kitchen in the morning 😀

The rest of the month has just flown by in settling the dogs in, settling in ourselves, setting up a routine and what not. We’ve got a long way to go still but life’s slowly getting into a rhythm.

Each day here is still an adventure with something crazy happening everyday. Sometimes its good crazy and sometimes bad but always crazy 😀 In all this chaos I hope to find more time to read and write in 2014. I have a lot of catching up to do and a lot of books due for review. Authors – Sorry if your book is pending review on my blog. I’m trying my best to catch up and should if all goes well 😛

There’s so much more to tell and share but I’ve gotta go now, the dogs are calling. I’ll be back with more about the dogs, my life and everything else soon 🙂

What’s your new year looking like? What plans for 2014?

Cuckoo: Can I keep both?

Today is not such a good day for me both physically and mentally. Mentally I’m just tired and physically I’m in a lot of pain. Got a heat boil on my butt thanks to the heat this week and almost every movement causes pain, especially sitting 😀

But that’s not what my post is about. A couple of days back I came across Donna Hill’s video on making toys with cloth and wanting to distract myself today, I figured I’d make some doggie toys. I love getting the dogs toys, it’s such fun to see them play and get excited. But good strong toys for the dogs are fairly expensive and so here’s where DIY comes in.

Here’s Donna’s video on Making FREE tug and chew toys for puppies and dogs of all sizes.

Now Donna talks about using old sheets and that I didn’t have but I did have a couple of my old pajamas that I loved so much, I wore them until they got holes in them. So here’s how to make a chew ring toy with old pajamas.

The pajamas I had were of banyan material.

Cut the elastic bit off first. Then cut along the joint to separate the two legs. You could also do this by opening the stitching but I took the easy route. 🙂

Cut each leg along the sides or seams to get four strips of cloth.

Cut off the fork area to roughly even out the strips.

Knot two strips together, pulling the knot as tight as you can. This will make sure it doesn’t unravel easily when the dog is playing with it.

Keep tying knots with the strips to make a rope. Alternate the sides when tying to get a cleaner finish and even cloth consumption. (I did this with the second and I think it looks better.)

When you have about four inches of cloth left, add another strip to one of the 4 inch pieces and knot it as before to secure it. Kind of how you do it when braiding and adding hair or lace.

Add the last strip on the other side and tie a knot again as before. Make sure that the old and new strips are knotted together at least twice. i.e. they should both be there in two knots. This will create a little bulge in the center with cloth sticking out that will add texture to the toy.

Continue knotting until you have four inches of cloth left.

Pass one strip through between the first and second knot to make a ring. Tie the strips off with a double knot to close the ring.

And voilà! there’s your chew ring toy.

Cuckoo immediately approved of it by running away with it 😀

You could dip the ring in chicken broth, squeeze out and freeze before giving it to your dog to create hours of chewing. Remember though that you should always supervise play as some dogs can chew through anything (like my Senti) and sometimes they swallow the pieces too. Stuff getting blocked in their intestines isn’t something you ever want to experience.

What I really like about the toy is that it is machine washable. 🙂

I made two of the toys since I had two pajamas. Here’s the SpongeBob SquarePants Chew Ring Toy. Sorry you can’t see much of Bob, but this pajama was one of my favs. 😀

If you have material for two rings you could also loop one into the other before closing the ring to get an interlocked ring toy that you can play tug with too. I needed two rings for two dogs, but I’ll be trying to make that an interlocked one soon.

Have you made any toys for your dogs? What do you recommend I try next?