Dog preventic collars and toxicity
My black lab mix Abby (57 lbs., nine years old, female neutered) just got her first tick of the season. We live in rural coastal northern California. Our local ticks are the usual pests, never the disease-inducing kind. I have always put a (Preventic, I think) collar on her (bought from our vet) and it has worked wonderfully. This year we have a six-month-old baby, my granddaughter Hannah, crawling around the house and heavy into her oral phase. She and Abby are getting acquainted (a bit of tentative mutual physical contact). My daughter is terribly worried that the tick collar will poison the baby. I have noticed that for a week or so after putting it around Abby's neck, the collar smells toxic and emits a slight powder. After that the smell declines radically and the powder disappears but it continues to work extremely well for three months or so. Is it safe around the baby at this stage (after a week)? Manually removing ticks is completely out of the question -- Abby reacts violently when this is attempted, going nuts, biting hard and drawing blood. We can, of course, separate the dog and the baby, but it will be difficult and very hard emotionally on Abby, but the baby's health comes first, of course. What do you recommend? Thank you |
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Cat losing hair with itchy skin
About a month ago my female neutered Siamese mix cat lost all the shine in her coat of long hair, and refuses to come into the house, preferring to remain in the garage. She is shedding her hair and it comes out in big clumps. The skin on her back near her tail is flaking off, like large dandruff, and the hairs have tiny black things on them near the base. This area is very itchy and when it is touched, she goes into an involuntary biting spasm. She also has small scabs on her skin spread all over her body. - Click
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