Ticks!

Squirrel Hill before the grass was so tall that it comes
above her head.

This week Emmy got her fur shaved because it's been getting so hot here.  It's a good thing too!  Yesterday we were on our run and I let her off leash like usual to a large hill that she likes to chase ground squirrels around.  When she came back I saw a bug on her and tried to flick it off.  When it didn't easily come off I took a better look and started to freak out.  I've never seen a live tick before, but knew exactly what it was when I saw it's body.  There were people around us so I didn't want to start squealing like a girl and run in circles, which is what I would have normally done.  Plus I was focused on getting the thing off of her fur before it burrowed in.  So I pinched her fur so that it couldn't crawl down any further and had to pick it off. First I was flicking at it, but the little bugger had himself stuck into her thick fur.  I resorted to pinching it like you are supposed to do with ticks.  After I got that one off I took her to a spot on the grass and made her sit there until I combed through all of her fur. I picked out eight ticks!  She is never going squirrel hunting again.  It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.  I probably looked like a mommy monkey picking lice out of her baby's fur.  I was so grossed out.

Christopher was playing tennis at our community park so I stopped by there on our way home to have him check her out and then also had my dad check for them too once we got home.  With them being the big campers/boy scout/scout master I figured that if there were anymore that I missed that they would get them.  Thankfully I had gotten them all before they managed to bite her.  Auntie Julie said that the ticks would have died anyway because of the flea/tick medicine and collar that she wears, but I'm just glad that they were all gone.  Yuck!

Look at all her fluff!

Before the shave

After the shave.  She lost 2.5 pounds of fur!

Bracing herself in case we have anymore earthquakes.