Aliens, Pets, and Ticks, Oh My

This is how my crazy brain works.

This weekend, I took my three kids to Papa's farm to ride horses. He barely has Internet (don't try to stream Netflix or the buffering will drive you crazy) and occasional cell phone coverage. Late July in Missouri is pretty hit or miss on whether you'll want to be outside or not. Usually miss. But we lucked out this time and the weather was perfect. Sunny, gorgeous, warm - but not miserably hot and humid. The girls rode to their heart's content, much to their bums' dismay.

We also took our two dogs and they LOVE the farm. Pup loves it, as long as her girls are there. KC ran and ran, peeing on every corner of Papa's acreage. Of course I dosed them both with flea and tick meds before we went, but those country ticks are pretty industrial sometimes.

We got home yesterday to do laundry and I noticed some mud streaks on pup's legs (she's white).

Ugh. Those were not mud streaks, but tiny little seed ticks.

Her legs were coated in them. And naturally they were falling off in the house. UGH. Emergency. I hate ticks!

So I ran the youngest to Wal-Mart and we bought some tick shampoo and a flea comb.  I also smeared a bunch of coconut oil and tea tree oil on her before we left, hoping that might help with the irritation and kill those little buggers (of course Pup has terribly sensitive skin, so the bites were getting red).

So there I am, out on our deck, roasting, naturally, because oh yeah it's hot and miserable now, combing tiny ticks off my dog.

Those ticks were little, but they sure looked too much like spiders for my comfort. I hate spiders. My sister had a dream about a massive alien spider one time that gave ME nightmares when she told me about it. Huh. I wonder if aliens have ticks. Or what would a tick look like for an alien species? Or their pets? Huh. I wonder what they'd do to take care of their pet, like stand out in miserable sun combing off ticks. Only it'd be sprinkling salt or minerals on nasty slug things. No, no, they'd have a cool Dr. Who tool that just zaps the nasty buggers.  If a human saw the pet and/or pest, would we be able to tell the difference?  Hmmm. What if we were the pets? What kind of pests would we get into? No, no, we're the pests they're trying to eradicate.

Yep, there goes another shiny story idea while I'm getting ticks off my dog.

Have you read any awesome alien pet/pest story lately that I can read to get my mind off the creepy crawlies that might have fallen off the dog onto my favorite easy chair?