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As some of you may know, we recently moved out of town to a 22 acre property in the country. Ralphie is absolutely LOVING all of the new space and getting so much off leash time. Everything has been very good, he seems to understand that this is his home now after a rough first few weeks where he screamed in his crate when we left and would panic if I walked out of site.
There was even a horse there for the first week while the previous owners arranged for his new home. The horse was not overly impressed with Ralphie. Ralphie enjoyed following the horse around and seeing what it was doing. There are also semi-feral cats there that Ralphie likes to "play" with. The cats do not like him, and because they are feral I can't get close enough to them, either, to teach them that Ralphie is easily cowed by a stern stare. So that's been fun. I'll walk into the barn and suddenly wild cats are flying everywhere, which very much excites the dog. He gets along quite well with my sister's cat, so I know he can do it, but it's impossible to train when the cats don't like me and just run!
Anyways, because the property was once home to at least a dozen horses and is kind of overgrown with weeds, we have a pretty severe fly and mosquito problem. I can wear mosquito spray, but they attack poor Ralphie with gusto. The fur on his body is thick enough to deter the bugs, but his face, legs, and parts of his belly are free game. Is there a bug spray out there safe for dogs so I can provide some relief for him while he's outside?
We are working on cleaning the property up, removing weeds, etc, and we'll likely have to use chemical spray to kill off some of them, because at the moment when you walk outside you're immediately attacked by a swarm of mosquitos and flies, and some of the flies are not deterred by the bug spray. We will also be adding bug repelling landscaping, but that won't be until next year!
There was even a horse there for the first week while the previous owners arranged for his new home. The horse was not overly impressed with Ralphie. Ralphie enjoyed following the horse around and seeing what it was doing. There are also semi-feral cats there that Ralphie likes to "play" with. The cats do not like him, and because they are feral I can't get close enough to them, either, to teach them that Ralphie is easily cowed by a stern stare. So that's been fun. I'll walk into the barn and suddenly wild cats are flying everywhere, which very much excites the dog. He gets along quite well with my sister's cat, so I know he can do it, but it's impossible to train when the cats don't like me and just run!
Anyways, because the property was once home to at least a dozen horses and is kind of overgrown with weeds, we have a pretty severe fly and mosquito problem. I can wear mosquito spray, but they attack poor Ralphie with gusto. The fur on his body is thick enough to deter the bugs, but his face, legs, and parts of his belly are free game. Is there a bug spray out there safe for dogs so I can provide some relief for him while he's outside?
We are working on cleaning the property up, removing weeds, etc, and we'll likely have to use chemical spray to kill off some of them, because at the moment when you walk outside you're immediately attacked by a swarm of mosquitos and flies, and some of the flies are not deterred by the bug spray. We will also be adding bug repelling landscaping, but that won't be until next year!