Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: annoyed
  • Music: Wicked, "Wonderful."

Putting poison on the cats.

So recently, I had an unwelcome house guest: an elderly black cat spent about a week and a half in the laundry room, waiting to be removed to its new home. There were a lot of very good reasons for the cat's presence, most of which I don't really want to go into. Lilly and Alice were fascinated by the interloper; Lilly wanted to kill it, while Alice wanted to PLAY PLAY PLAY. Behold the difference between "manic" and "temperamental," ladies and gentlemen. The cat was eventually removed, returning the house to its normal state...but a host's gift was kindly left behind.

We have fleas again.

This was discovered when I took Alice to the groomer on Saturday (she'd managed to develop belly mats, thanks to all my recent traveling, and I just wanted them gone so we could return to non-painful grooming). "Did you know you have fleas? Oh, the poor baby, she's just crawling with them."

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was...displeased. I fought a long, hard battle to get rid of the fleas last time this happened. Since Alice is a longhair and Lilly has a very dense, plush coat, it's possible for them to have fleas without my actually being able to see the signs. And since I brush both of them really regularly, they don't get as itchy as they might otherwise, so I don't get as much visible scratching. I went straight out and got flea medication, along with carpet powder and bedding spray. Then I came home and checked the calendar.

See, most flea treatments are given at one-month intervals, and I needed to be sure the second dose would come due after I got back from Australia. Today turned out to be the magical day. The day I poured poison on the cats.

Alice took it with good grace, because Alice sweats sedatives. Lilly was substantially more offended, and slunk off to glare at me for about twenty minutes. I don't care. THE FLEAS WILL DIE. Thus I swear.

Stupid fleas.
Tags: alice, cats, cranky blonde is cranky, lilly
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  • 70 comments

mskauri

August 12 2010, 02:41:23 UTC 6 years ago

We have 6 cats (3 polydactyl, 3 Manx/Desert Lynx) and two dogs...plus the goats and horses. As much as I hate Advantage and the rest of the poison stuff, there is a time and place for it (wasn't that one of Kevin Bacon's lines in "Footloose"? "A time to poison fleas, a time to dance in celebration of their death...").

Most of the time, though, we use Orange Guard (a natural orange-oil based cleaner found with the 409 and Lysol at the store) and a product called I-G Regulator from GardensAlive.com inside the house...and then we spray nematodes (also Gardensalive.com) outside. We actually means "the husband" but you get the idea. The stuff from Gardens Alive works for 7 months, too, which is awesome! Their enzyme spray (for accidents of pet- and organic-matter varieties) is fabulous too.

Hooray for the availability of the heavy artillery, though--I bet your girls will thank you soon!

seanan_mcguire

August 16 2010, 15:14:34 UTC 6 years ago

They seem much happier now that they aren't being devoured by tiny biting things.