Spring has come in all sunshine, breeze, flowers, and bugs.  Some of these things make our day while others are just plain annoying.  While out walking my new puppy for the ranch I came back with a reminder that the pasture and trees are not always my friend. Yes, it was a nasty little tick crawling on my hand out of no were.  In this blog, I want to focus on our fur babies and how we can make their lives amazing.  I own a Maine coon Fur Baby and a 15-week-old Anatolian Pyrenees Fur Puppy.  We also have longhorn, llama, donkeys, and horses on the ranch where I live and work.  My daughters own 2 small dogs that are in the house.  Needless to say, I have lots of fur babies around me.

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year.  You can see new growth all around you in nature.  Since I have a horticulture degree, I get to play in the soil and design gorgeous flower beds to make me happy throughout the growing season.  The warm breeze, rains, and sunshine bring out other nasty things like fleas, ticks, bugs of all types and snakes.  There are a few good bugs and snakes out there but for the most part, we want them all dead and not in our space or our fur babies.   I like to go organic as much as possible without harming my plants, fur babies or myself.  I will usually start with organic methods if this does not work I will move on to pesticides.  I am sure there are people out there that don’t like this but hey we are all entitled to our own option.  On that note for all the people that preach bandwagons but do little or no research.  Organic methods can also be harmful to the land and those that use it.  Organics really have no testing required by law making them very dangerous if overused.  I do believe in vaccines for my fur babies and preventive flea and tick meds.  I have owned fur babies that I adopted that had contracted nasty things from being bite by fleas and ticks, I refuse to torture a fur baby that does not understand what is going on. Ok, enough of my soapbox.

I spray my yard after every rain with an equal mixture of beer, apple cider vinegar, original dawn soap and a few drops of orange oil.  This is placed in a hose sprayer for it to be mixed with water as it goes on your yard.  I spray everything.  This means, grass, soil, shrubs, flowers, sides of house and concrete.  This mixture kills aphids, fleas, mosquitos and most other bugs until it is washed off by a sprinkler system or rain.  This is a great organic method to use to kill bugs however if it does not kill them all they will come back with a vengeance.  You will need to use pesticides at that point to keep from having a flea outbreak in your yard and house. You can also wash your fur babies in this mixture to kill fleas.  It is not harmful to your fur babies.

Lastly, fur baby massage is a real thing.  I massage my fur babies daily.  They love a good massage as much as we do.  It is hard to find certified fur baby massage therapist due to people not training their fur babies to behave.  No one wants to get a bite or have fleas brought into their place.  They also require up to date vaccines records to keep their own fur babies safe.    You can look up videos online to learn how to give your own fur baby a little massage. Here is a few links to get you started, How To Massage Your Dog 

Pet Massage