Visiting Thor and trying to rid Zeus of ticks

We paid a visit to Thor over the weekend and he seemed especially happy to see us. His owner wasn't around (she keeps forgetting her appointments) so we were getting worried. But she finally got someone to let us in. He has put on weight and seems okay. We miss Thor and hope he's getting enough attention because his new owner seems busy lately.

As you may know, Zeus stayed over with daddy's sis and family for two days last week. Apparently they found over 200 ticks all over him, and many clustered around his ear. Grandma and daddy's sis spent a lot of time pulling them off. They were so horrified. And so were we. Zeus seemed fine apart from occasionally scratching himself.We thought it was normal. We felt horrible for not inspecting Zeus properly.

We knew Zeus was prone to ticks. But having over 200 ticks pulled off must mean that he must have had eggs on him. Mummy found a female tick on him last week (they are big, grey and full of eggs). We bought him many tick remedies over the weekend - a herbal oilment called Dermisil, Frontline, Advantix and Spectrum. From past experience, we knew Frontline didn't work. An Internet search showed that Frontline may be losing its effectiveness. But according to daddy's family, spraying Frontline on Zeus causes ticks to crawl out. They also bought the Frontline monthly application for medium dogs. We've been buying Frontline for small dogs as Zeus was really small back then. Considering his size now, he definitely needs a medium.

So we've bathed him with Dermisil and applied Frontline on him. So far we have been finding ticks on the floor and very few on his body. Alive and dead. He is still scratching himself. As Frontline takes some time to work, we can only hope the ticks on his body are being killed very slowly, especially the baby ones, and the eggs.

We are still waiting for Advantix and Spectrum to arrive. They are said to be effective when Frontline isn't. If Zeus doesn't get better, we might be trying those two out next.