Oh how I hate these little buggers. I studied all about the many species of ticks while earning my Vet Tech degree, and these little suckers are truly disgusting.
The American Dog tick (Dermacentor Variabilis) is everywhere, and each year I have to make the choice whether or not to put down poison to keep the kids from being covered in them. This year I gambled and decided not to go the poison route. My oldest has lucked out...Apparently her body chemistry was not attractive to them and she had no tick incidents this year. My youngest on the other hand has had 5 bites from dog ticks and 3 bites from deer ticks this year. Luckily I have found them all within a handful of hours but those deer tick nymphs are SMALL!!! More than 1 out of every 2 Deer ticks in this area have Lyme disease, so I have been pulling my hair out (and poor Dana's, looking for ticks) all summer long. Short of dipping her in DEET there is nothing I can do but do a full body inspection EVERY TIME she comes back inside. It makes me want to move to the South West....but then I would just worry about scorpions and rattle snakes.
Threats to small children abound in my area....at least according to the local news. It seems that besides my children being besieged by ticks, I need to keep a watch out for groundhogs, rabid foxes,and such. Those these reports are from a year ago, but are typical of reports from year to year.
I wonder if a whale or dolphin can get rabies? Would they experience the typical hydrophobia? Maybe that's why they are always beaching themselves. What a bad horror film that could make.....A terrorist purposefully infecting pods of whales that start crushing our ships as they try to throw themselves out of the water onto the boats.
Clearly I need to get out more.
