I've lurked on this site a little but this is my first post. My hubby and me have a one-year-old white hybrid wolf named Moro... we had been thinking about getting a new puppy for Moro to play with, since she absolutely loves other dogs and gets really sad when our friends bring their dogs over and have to leave, she'll sit by the window and whine for her doggie friends to come back. So I saw this ad for yellow lab puppies for $75 and we called and went out there yesterday.
The lady had a male left and we were hoping for a male...we got out there and it was this place in the middle of nowhere (I'm from Kansas so this was truly in the country), and she had this poor puppy in a very small concrete pen, next to other pens with adult pit bulls and adult labs that were cramped in with each other. He was a very cute puppy, but covered in dirt and bugs... she swore she uses frontline on them but was like 'well you know living in the country'....I can understand a few bugs but this was ridiculous... the poor guy was totally covered in ticks and fleas, especially tiny deer ticks...around his ears, especially in the flaps and folds of his ears...backs of his legs, around his eyes, in between each toe of all four paws, and belly/crotch area he had places that were completely black, covered in zillions of little bitty ticks. Even though we probably shouldn't have got him, we did, neither of us wanted to leave him there. On the way home, ticks were literally falling off him and crawling around the backseat of hubby's car, I probably set about 30 of them on fire on the way back home.
We got him home and gave him two baths in a row (with flea/tick killing shampoo), which helped a lot...then he sat on my lap and I spent about five hours going over him with tweezers and picking itty bitty deer ticks off him like, literally hundreds of them, it was disgusting... but he was a very good boy and held super-still for me, even as I tweezed ticks from really delicate areas like his eyelids. Then he got a third bath, and I think we killed most of the bugs finally because by then the ticks I was pulling off weren't moving and I'm pretty sure they were dead. But hubby is taking him to the vet today while I'm at work to get professional tick killing stuff and to make sure he doesn't have any other health problems. Moro played with him a little after his baths and tweezing, and seemed to really like him, but we kept him seperate from her last night so that we could try to prevent her from getting bugs from him as much as possible.
He's golden yellow in color with an adorable brown nose and pale amber eyes. We named him Midas. Don't have a way to post pics online yet but I will eventually when I can We took some pictures before starting the process of getting these hundreds of ticks off, to show the vet, but it's very hard to tell what they are because most of these deer ticks were so tiny that in the picture it looks like they could just be clumps of dirt. You can still see the bite marks where I tweezed ticks off him last night though.
I feel bad about giving that breeder money for him when she obviously doesn't treat her animals like she should...but at the same time, I think I would have felt worse if we had said no and just left him out there. I don't know. We were planning to tell the vet what kind of conditions he was in when we got him, and ask his advice on what we should do/if we should report this lady somehow... I don't know if anyone would do anything though.
Anyone have any advice on helping a puppy with MAJOR vermin problems, especially a good tick-killer? I just don't want this problem to spread to Moro as well, but I think the bathing/tweezing last night, if it didn't kill all of them, at least put a good dent in their population. But I've never seen this many ticks on a dog, it was crazy. I'm hoping he's healthy otherwise and that the vet can suggest something that will completely eliminate the tick problem. And maybe suggest what to do about this breeder and if there's anything we can do.
I know I shouldn't have bought from her because it just keeps a breeder like that in business etc.... please don't flame me for it. It might have been a mistake but I am glad that Midas is out of that place and has someone caring for him now and doesn't just exist as an all-you-can-eat buffet for ticks!
The lady had a male left and we were hoping for a male...we got out there and it was this place in the middle of nowhere (I'm from Kansas so this was truly in the country), and she had this poor puppy in a very small concrete pen, next to other pens with adult pit bulls and adult labs that were cramped in with each other. He was a very cute puppy, but covered in dirt and bugs... she swore she uses frontline on them but was like 'well you know living in the country'....I can understand a few bugs but this was ridiculous... the poor guy was totally covered in ticks and fleas, especially tiny deer ticks...around his ears, especially in the flaps and folds of his ears...backs of his legs, around his eyes, in between each toe of all four paws, and belly/crotch area he had places that were completely black, covered in zillions of little bitty ticks. Even though we probably shouldn't have got him, we did, neither of us wanted to leave him there. On the way home, ticks were literally falling off him and crawling around the backseat of hubby's car, I probably set about 30 of them on fire on the way back home.
We got him home and gave him two baths in a row (with flea/tick killing shampoo), which helped a lot...then he sat on my lap and I spent about five hours going over him with tweezers and picking itty bitty deer ticks off him like, literally hundreds of them, it was disgusting... but he was a very good boy and held super-still for me, even as I tweezed ticks from really delicate areas like his eyelids. Then he got a third bath, and I think we killed most of the bugs finally because by then the ticks I was pulling off weren't moving and I'm pretty sure they were dead. But hubby is taking him to the vet today while I'm at work to get professional tick killing stuff and to make sure he doesn't have any other health problems. Moro played with him a little after his baths and tweezing, and seemed to really like him, but we kept him seperate from her last night so that we could try to prevent her from getting bugs from him as much as possible.
He's golden yellow in color with an adorable brown nose and pale amber eyes. We named him Midas. Don't have a way to post pics online yet but I will eventually when I can We took some pictures before starting the process of getting these hundreds of ticks off, to show the vet, but it's very hard to tell what they are because most of these deer ticks were so tiny that in the picture it looks like they could just be clumps of dirt. You can still see the bite marks where I tweezed ticks off him last night though.
I feel bad about giving that breeder money for him when she obviously doesn't treat her animals like she should...but at the same time, I think I would have felt worse if we had said no and just left him out there. I don't know. We were planning to tell the vet what kind of conditions he was in when we got him, and ask his advice on what we should do/if we should report this lady somehow... I don't know if anyone would do anything though.
Anyone have any advice on helping a puppy with MAJOR vermin problems, especially a good tick-killer? I just don't want this problem to spread to Moro as well, but I think the bathing/tweezing last night, if it didn't kill all of them, at least put a good dent in their population. But I've never seen this many ticks on a dog, it was crazy. I'm hoping he's healthy otherwise and that the vet can suggest something that will completely eliminate the tick problem. And maybe suggest what to do about this breeder and if there's anything we can do.
I know I shouldn't have bought from her because it just keeps a breeder like that in business etc.... please don't flame me for it. It might have been a mistake but I am glad that Midas is out of that place and has someone caring for him now and doesn't just exist as an all-you-can-eat buffet for ticks!