My dogs have both been horrifically itchy the last few weeks. I’ve tried the usual culprits – we do have fleas in our yard, so we treated them with topical. The older dog has taken the oral previously and didn’t do well with it.

Topical does not repel fleas, it merely makes sure that if they bite the dog they do not breed and if they do not breed it keeps the dog from having an infestation. The problem is that even a single flea bite can send some dogs into a frenzy of itching.

Ok – so it is allergies. How do we fight allergies to fleas? We could try… anti inflammatory foods. Fish oil, sardines, sweet potato, blueberries, broccoli. This seemed to make some difference, nothing major.

Ok how about probiotics? That seemed to work slowly to help but again, we didn’t notice a major difference.

So is it fleas, I don’t know. But if it is, how can we stop fleas at the source? Beneficial nematodes. These are parasites that kill fleas and other pests. This is the next thing on my list to try. I’m going to spray my entire lawn with flea parasites. probably every other month until October, which is when fleas in my area begin to over winter.

But let’s not stop there. Dog parasites can make dogs itchy and I don’t remember when the last time either of these dogs was de-wormed. I’ve noticed wormy poops from one of them years ago and de-wormed them at that time, but I’ve not noticed any other signs of parasites in the last few years.

However since dogs graze on grass, get bit by fleas and mosquitos, and eat cat poop or whatever other scat they can find if you aren’t looking, I decided to err on the side of Caution and hit them with a seven way de-wormer tablet that should knock out any worms they may be carrying.

In fact I plan on deworming myself as well, even though it seems crazy, I’ve lived a life, drank water out of streams, swam in the ocean, owned pets, eaten lots of sushi, raw meat, drank water in Mexico, etc. I have never hit myself with a genuine parasite cleanse, so why not?!

Update

We have nematodes, mites, and 3000 live lady bugs all coming by Wednesday. I’m going to hit my dogs with Equimax in 2 weeks, this will take out any tapeworms or other parasites. I’m also going to either go through All Family Pharmacy for Ivermectin and Membenzadole or take a dab of Equimax myself. It’s a horse paste dewormer lol.