Time to start the garlic!

Flea season is upon us! As everyone with an animal knows, if you let the little buggers gain a foothold, it's disaster time! You will spend hundreds of dollars on sprays, maybe spot-ons, powders, internal preperations, hundreds of hours cleaning and spraying and fogging and dusting the yard. I can usually avoid it with some advance preperation.

There are concotions on the market, but I'm sort of cheap. I have to be, I have 7 dogs, right? I went to the vet for three heartworm tests (negative :) three boxes of Sentinel, and 1 three year Rabies shot...$340. I almost had a heart attack!

So, every morning when I mix thier breakfast....dry Royal Canin, a can of wet, usually chicken, crushed Companion or Solid Gold vitimins and water, I now add a scant shake of Garlic Powder. You don't want to give too much, that can cause Animia. So if you mix for one or two, I think put a shake in your hand and use half.

It's also time for adding Apple Cider Vinigar to the water besides the 35% food grade peroxide. Just a teaspoon to the water bowl will do it....with all these things you're going for the cumulative effect of your daily efforts. Anything at all, if given in excess in one sitting, can cause toxicity.

So between the Garlic and Vinagar and the other stuff you do, fleas (and mosquitos) don't stand a chance. Firt, fleas absolutely hate the taste of garlic, add the double whammy of altered Ph of the blood thanks to the Vinagar (which makes it stink to bloodsuckers), they are not sticking around for a meal. They may jump onto the neighbor's dog, a stray cat or anything else (including you....eat GARLIC!!), but they won't be on your dog. :)

This goes for horses too folks...give them a hand, doctor that water. Garlic for horses, I bet so, but I don't know how much. That's what search engines are for :)

I also dust my yard and kennels with Diatomacous earth. It's made from ground up Diatoms, ancient fossilized deposits are mined from the earth. It"s ground up shells, really, and you can imagine that's just like glass shards to a soft bodied insect. These shards pierce the body of the insect (fleas, ticks, earwigs, anything that crawls and has a soft body). After a couple days, the insect dies of dehydration. So after a rain, of course you may want to refresh it if you have a problem, because once the Diatoms get wety, they are no longer sharp.