Today I found a rather ugly looking grayish-brown thing on Caesar's skin. I had no idea what it was, but it looked somewhat like an enormous mole. Because Caesar's fur is so thick, it was hard to separate it and see what the thing actually was.
I showed it to my landlady, and she said that it was a 'blah-blah' (this is my version of what she said in Spanish). Clearly, I don't know the Spanish word for such things, but she did say it was a parasite that was sucking my baby's blood. Gross.
Hence, the Google search, when after typing in parasite cat removal, I finally found what I was looking for, after wading through a couple pages on the various other ailments cats can get if they go outside often (which Caesar now does).
It's called a tick. And it's really, really ugly. Thankfully, they're pretty much harmless in this part of the world, although apparently Australian ticks cause paralysis. Remind me not to go to Australia. Seems like all the worst nasty disease carrying creatures live there. Anyway, now I have to start doing regular tick checks on Caesar, and removing them if necessary. The process is kind of gross too, have to grab the tick by its head with a pair of tweezers and pull gently so you get rid of the whole tick. Now, little bits of these two ticks are still in my poor baby's skin, but apparently cats can usually handle that just fine.
Nasty little bugs. I hate bugs.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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2 comments:
Best thing to remove a tick is to light a match blow it out and stick the hot tip on the rearend of the tick and it will back out of the spot where it is lodged. Works I have watched it in process. Gross nonetheless....
I have no interest in sticking a match anywhere near Caesar's fur. Tweezers were bad enough, poor thing. he was really good, though, and he's feeling quite in fine form today. :) Got himself all dirty outside today.
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