Fleas

One flea fly flew up the flue and 

The other flea fly flew down.

Unfortunately there was no flue involved, just 5 angry cats.  

I made the mistake over the summer of letting our cat Alice out into the back yard for an hour or two every now and then.  She wouldn't go any farther than sitting in the grass and would come back to the door and ask to be let in.  It seemed like a nice thing for me to do.

I will not be nice like that ever again.

One of cats, Edgar, is pure white, with 2 large black spots.  While petting him last week I noticed that the he had all sorts of black "dirt" throughout his white fur.  Closer inspection led me to the horror of finding critters scurrying about, close to his skin.

He was quickly bathed and everyone else inspected.  The other cats vary in colour from black and white to beige and orange.  We didn't see anything on them, but erred on the side of caution and everyone got a bath last Sunday morning.  Good thing too, as the water exposed what we could not see.  Everyone had fleas.

I wish we had taken a video of Oscar during his bath as he makes the most pitiful and horrible noises.  You would not think any living creature was capable of those sounds.  I am not willing to re-bath him just to capture the moment for posterity, but if we don't get this under control and have to bath him again, I'll be sure to have the camera ready.

All the cats are now sporting lovely new flea collars.  Hopefully all of our efforts (which included many, many loads of laundry) will work and the only bugs we'll be left with are Gary's crickets.