I love my dog.
I walk him every day, I carefully consider his diet, and I take care to ensure that he always has fresh clean water available to him.
I've been known to spoil him on occasion, and some may say I treat him like a surrogate child.
But, when my loyal companion, my faithful exercise partner started to scratch, and scratch and scratch, I knew we had a problem.
Could it be fleas? I've seen TV commercials advertising flea treatments; I've seen products endorsed by celebrities promoting flea treatments.
These endorsements always show a happy health vibrant dog whose life has improved significantly after using the advertised product to treat the flea infestation.
Seems simple doesn't it? Growing up we always had cats, and in most of my memories those cats where wearing little white stretchy flea collars.
I assumed with my dog, treatment would be the same.
I'd also noticed in all of the advertising for flea treatments and remedies that there had been some scientific developments and now in addition to flea collars there were also flea powders, and flea treatments that consisted of applying a small droplet of formula to a specific area on the dog's body.
Before rushing out to purchase a product to turn my scratchy beast into a happy vibrant puppy-like dog again, I thought I should learn more about flea treatments that are now available.
I checked some of the major online pet retailers.
The first product I saw advertised was one of the liquids that you apply to several spots on your dog.
Then I read the cautions, the one that got my attention was, 'if on skin or clothing: Rinse skin immediately and call poison control center or doctor for treatment advice.
' If this product gets on my clothing I need to call poison control? And yet, I'm supposed to apply an entire tube on four to six spots on my dogs back? I decided to look at a different product, maybe the trusty white stretchy collars that I'd used on my childhood cats.
It didn't take may clicks to find frightening warnings about what I thought was a harmless product.
Warnings such as risk of cancer, and damage to the neurological systems of children spurned me on to continue my research.
Through this admittedly brief research (I was so taken aback I didn't want to consider any sort of chemical flea treatment), I came across something called 'Tiny Timmy's Healing Journey'.
I was drawn to his story and interested to learn more.
He's a cat who suffered neurological damage from exposure to toxic OTC flea & tick products.
His owners have made it their crusade to educate pet owners on the dangers of flea treatments, treatments that continue to be readily available both online, in pet stores and from licensed veterinarians.
Now back to my dog with the scratching problem.
After all the horrors I'd read about, the toxic poisons, cancer risks and neurological dangers, I wasn't about to apply any sort of drops to my dog's back, or affix any sort of chemical-laden collar to his precious neck.
At the same time, I knew I couldn't just leave him to scratch his fleas away.
I'm off to buy a flea comb, and will then coax my fur baby into a bath, and maybe we'll even get to try out the new pet hair dryer that we bought recently.