Goodbye Fleas

Well our family has had an interesting little bit. It was discovered that our very inside cat had met some very outside fleas. Now we tried to be good guardians and teach them to share and play nice but neither side would have it. The fleas apparently were in that "teenage-boy" stage where they were just super hungry all the time and Kiara didn't like being the main course on their menu. Though I am sure the fleas didn't like all of Kiara's scratching to try and get rid of them either.

The whole flea situation was discovered when we noticed Kiara was acting like she was in pain and was moaning and dragging herself across the carpet, etc. We called my Dad to see what was wrong and what we could do for her. He said that it sounded like fleas. Marc rushed to the store to buy Kiara a flea collar and rushed back. Wanting her to be out of pain as soon as possible, he hurried and put the collar on. Looking back, it might have been better to make sure we had read the instructions first.

But Kiara had only had one bad day like the first one and we were excited at the progress we were making. Kiara might not have been so excited. She HATED the collar and would try to run away from it at first or try to hide from it. It was a long few days of her being so mad at us and it was our first real exposure to what we can expect in parenting. I have decided that I don't know if I am up for parenting if it is anything like that, but I was proud that the collar stayed on no matter how mad she got.

We knew that we would be moving into our new house soon and didn't want to move these darling little fleas with us. So Marc and I again went to the store and spent a LONG time looking at flea killing supplies. By the time we left we had stuff for the carpets, the furniture, a shampoo, and another collar. We thoroughly read the directions for everything and off we went. While Marc gave poor little Kiara a flea bath I went about doing the carpets and furniture. We discovered during this time that when we put the collar on we hadn't activated the killing solution. So the fleas were definitely attracted to the collar, the many, many, MANY bites on Kiara's neck can attest to that but they weren't being killed. No wonder she didn't like the collar. Maybe I shouldn't be so proud that I left it on her after all....oops! After the flea bath she was dried and a new collar was put on correctly this time, we hope.

The next step was making sure we weren't carrying any fleas either. Both Marc and I got flea baths and every article of clothing, bedding, towels, etc. is being washed so as to not move any of those little buggers with us. But through this whole process we have learned some valuable lessons:

* Read the instructions before continuing on
* Find the humor in ANY situation
* Having loved ones who love and support you, is what this life is all about

So if you have any other questions about defleaing an animal, make sure not to call Marc or myself....we aren't really experts on the subject :)