7 May
First thing I apply the dogs’ mosquito medication. After a couple of hours Lucky
is acting a little weird; he is sitting in the corner with his head down. I keep an eye on him.
After another hour he is still not himself so I decide to look on the Internet for side-effects of Vectra 3D. YIKES!!!!! People’s dogs have died! As fast as I can I give Lucky a thorough bath. There is baby shampoo here so I can give his face a thorough wash. Wow, he’s clean! Once he’s been dried off with the hair dryer he is 100%. Whew. Lucien
and Toby seem fine although Toby vomited a little, a noted side effect. Since they seem OK I decide to just keep an eye on them.
We have sausage from the town of Toulouse (supposedly a great sausage place) and lentils for lunch. We just relax at home. Surprisingly I think my fantasy of living in France has been satisfied–there’s no place like home. Please send me the ruby slippers.
8 May
I thought we (and the dogs) were out of the woods! No such luck. About midnight Toby vomited really a lot and started trembling uncontrollably.
I bathed him and after I got him dried off with the hair dryer he seemed to calm down and eventually he fell asleep and woke up just fine. But let me tell you I was scared! Needless to say I bathed Lucien last night too but I did not observe any problems with him. The Internet discussions said the side effects could occur more than 2 weeks after application so I was not taking any chances.
I was in contact with our vet at home last night (the time difference worked in our favor) and she thinks the dogs were affected by pyrethrin toxicity (the active ingredient in the topical medication). The remedy is to bath the dog 3x with Dawn dish washing liquid. Dawn apparently has grease fighting ingredients to get the medication off the dog. We did not have Dawn so I used baby shampoo (3x) so that I could also wash their faces really well. I suspect there is still some of the medication on their skin but maybe it was reduced enough so that they could tolerate it. It was clear to me that bathing them was the remedy because they recovered nearly immediately after their baths.
France has been trying to kill my dogs for years! (Leo nearly died from a parasite the first time we brought him here.) But they all seem fine now. But I will need to deal with the mosquito parasite problem; I’ll save that for another day.
Today is a holiday: World War II Victory Day. EVERY French town has a memorial to the soldiers that died in wars. The memorial in Servian lists the WWI dead and it is unbelievable how many men from this little town lost their lives. There has been criticism of France’s reluctance to fight in WWII but WWI devastated the population of men. Of all the men mobilized, 73% (6.1 million) were casualties (that includes 1.4 million dead, 4.3 million wounded of which 1.5 were permentantly maimed, and .5 million missing). The US had 8% casualties. So there is much more to the story of France’s reluctance to ship soldiers into war.
Today is laundry day. It is a beautiful day; no wind. We sit on the front veranda and enjoy the day. We have lamb chops, baked tomatoes and fried potatoes for lunch. YUM! Lots of laundry. No wind! Beautiful day!
After lunch I see two men leaving the cafe/bar just next to us. One man is so drunk that his “friend” is literally dragging him, with toes scraping the ground, to the drunken man’s vehicle. I cannot believe it! I RUN down our stairs and up the street yelling “No, monsieur!” When I reach his vehicle I cannot effectively communicate in French. I just keep saying “No!” And pleading with his so-called friends saying this is crazy in French. They just give me the Gallic shrug–meaning there is nothing I can do. Too bad we don’t have a video–it would be amusing if it were not so tragic. The man turns up in later days so at least he was not killed but I’m not sure about any other casualties in his way home that day.
9 May
Thank god for Catherine, the native French-speaker. She calls the vet office and talks with a woman vet (we had been seeing a man and I never got his name). Catherine explains what has transpired. The woman says that we cannot let the dogs go unprotected because the risk is too great. She recommends an insecticidal collar that has only one of the ingredients contained in the liquid–hopefully not the ingredient that caused the problems. Our vet at home looks into the collar and says it’s possible that there will be no reaction. The woman here says to put the collars on early in the day so that I’d there are any problems we can take them into the office for evaluation.
So I have to go back to the vet’s office and fortunately the lady vet is there–I am happy to not have to try and explain this all over again. But unfortunately she needs to order the collars. She tells me to come back the next day. And she also gives me the number to call after hours if there is an emergency–I wonder how effective I will be on the phone in the event of an emergency.
I go back the next day and it’s the man instead of the woman. He is with a couple and it appears that their dog is having serious problems. I go to the waiting room. The lady comes in and sits down. She has her Yorkie with her; it’s the other dog, an Irish Setter, that is ill. We actually chat; I warn her that I don’t speak French very well. Based on what she told me about the dog, I am really afraid that they will need to have him put down. I am really relieved that they leave with him so maybe there’s hope. (I am proud of myself that I actually talked with her.)
So now I have to explain the entire problem with the man-vet! Will this trial (the language problem) ever pass! We eventually understand each other and now I have to shell out another 100€ for the collars. Ah well–I am happy to do it if the dogs are protected. The collars take a week before the dogs are fully protected so we make sure that they go out before dusk and after dawn (the times they say the mosquitoes are active).