Critter Concerns

Friday and Saturday we had ants in the kitchen. And no, Spungen, they were not odiferous, at least not to me -- but then again my sinuses have been causing me so much trouble for the past two weeks it's possible they stank to high heaven and I never noticed. But more about that another day. I heard all kinds of theories -- they're looking for food; some settlement from the house dislodged their nest; it's cold outside so they're trying to stay warm; they need a source of water; they're being driven into the house by other creatures. I've no way of knowing which are good theories and which are pure speculation.

After a second bad morning in a row cleaning them up, I didn't care. The Wife and I decided to not take any chances on any of these theories and take more direct action. We bought ant motels and Spectracide and used them liberally everywhere near where the ants had been sighted. The cats didn't understand why we confined them for so long in the spare bedroom, and the dogs really wanted in from the back yard, but we waited until the insecticide dried completely so the critters would be in no danger.

Since then, I haven't seen any ants. The Wife says she saw some in the trash cabinet tonight but that she poisoned them. Ah, chemical warfare -- bad for people, to be sure, but somehow morally acceptable when used on insects.

More on the critters -- the big dog, Sassy, has been scratching her ear a lot recently, so The Wife took her to the vet. The vet discovered a fungal infection in her ear and we've had to clean it out often since then. She does not like that one bit; at least she's stopped whining because she knows that after she makes it through the rinse and cleaning, there's a dog cookie in it for her. It's really gross cleaning out the dog's ear, but that's part of the job of having critters.

So is worrying about things like the Parvovirus outbreak in the area. Sassy just had her shots updated but I'm not so sure about Karma. So we'll have to take her in soon, too. And the vet advises that she's seen an increase in flea activity -- which is really bad news, because Frontline is expensive and none of the critters like it, especially the primadonna grossa of all cats everywhere, our very own Ginger.

That, and we really ought to register the critters, too. I've sort of been thinking about putting that off until we move into a permanent house of our own. We're likely going to do what we can to buy a place when our lease is up in June; it makes sense to register the pets at their permanent home rather than here, but of course we really ought to register them anyway in case they get loose somehow. The Wife has been window-shopping quite a bit already and we've toured a number of houses to see what we like. Right now it feels as though we can save enough money to get into the world where we can at least pay our closing costs.