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Take two- they're small
 
A character in search of six authors- a haven for connoisseurs of the absurd, the non-sequitur and the bad pun.

Keywords | Title View | Refer to a Friend |
The Shadow The Shadow The Shadow War
Posted:May 4, 2015 11:27 am
Last Updated:Oct 8, 2020 2:19 pm
17285 Views

I mined a few relevant posts to create a new flarf poem. The Shadow War is an item of news in a tiny and demented corner of Blogtown these last few months. I have received shots across my bows and a couple of shells landed in the pig sty, but that needed to be mucked out anyway. Otherwise there has been no damage sustained- I'm the same asshole I was when hostilities commenced. To date, I have not fired a shot officially, although there was some skirmishing on the frontier some time ago- minor injuries were reported but no permanent harm was done. I've grown a bit weary of it all, droning on in the background, and thought I might ought to issue a statement of some sort. Since I'm temporarily addicted to flarf poetry, what better medium to use as a vehicle to say what's on my mind?

Have you slept or even had sex in a four-poster bed?
Have you ever slept or had sex in a water bed?
What’s your bed like?

Wait a minute, that ain't it.....

The Shadow The Shadow The Shadow War
A Brief Flarf Epic in Five Verses

THE SHADOW WAR LEAVING THE VINDICTAVE Kzoo Pear
for people to know for people to know for people to know
using a stage face was Kzoo to penetrate my friend LX
LX you became irrelevant Afterwards in the shadows, darkness and quiet
Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear KzooP

it is all because he is the only other one hard to destroy
like cockroaches My enemies began climbing the charts
friends fell, friends become active, friends I intend to get
but it matters little LX exposed seduced by a narcissist
Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear KzooP

to haunt his victim Kzoo Pear laugh and ridicule me six moths
LX, KK, AC and DA operate in the shadows, poetic punishment
them insightful woman is seduced by a narcissist- Hidden couldn't
I believed that the fake was Kzoo Pear the male of the couple
Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoop

for people to know for people to know for people to know
My stalker seems to have trouble not panicking I am but it matters little
I am happy to be revealed it is all because I am Sandra
The end result is clear It will be part of it the light is my best punisment
Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoop

THE SHADOW WAR THE SHADOW WAR THE SHADOW WAR
for people to know for people to know for people to know
truthfulness of everything turn out amazing Stalkers hate to be exposed
six moths to penetrate Kzoo Pear Hidden LX, KK, AC and DA
Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoo Pear Kzoop

17 Comments
Member photos...
Posted:Apr 30, 2015 9:31 am
Last Updated:Jun 9, 2016 10:41 pm
18608 Views
No, not THAT member. Just my skull. I can't add to or update my profile photos, and haven't been able to for over two months. It's just one more frustrating glitch and I'm not gonna waste energy bitching about it.But- there seems to be a consensus among bloggers here that photos should properly be current. These are about as current as you can get.







If it scares people off, so be it. But this is me, unvarnished, un-photoshopped (seriously, who would TRY to look like me?) and unedited.

47 Comments   (Page:)
Freakin' leprechauns
Posted:Apr 30, 2015 12:00 am
Last Updated:Jul 21, 2015 10:46 pm
17138 Views

Freakin' Leprechauns- 2nd flarf poem:

Freakin' leprechauns
wipe your dick off after sex
would you like a blinged cock?
I just enjoy sitting back and savoring the taste
both glorious and, paradoxically, profane
pay no attention to those three
having it done to them
strapped to her left hip was a knife. The white bikini adorned
she carries a man's cum within her
others wish they could somehow tap into it.
we would need to sniff out the Arse
she brings her fingers to my mouth after she touches herself.....
why are they buried in a hole
this wholly fucked up trip
you can't navigate these waters

16 Comments
Cut ups, flarf and going with the flow
Posted:Apr 29, 2015 8:06 pm
Last Updated:Jul 21, 2015 3:15 pm
16899 Views

The flarf poem I posted isn't properly flarf poetry, according to the criteria of the earliest practitioner, Gary Sullivan. Flarf was more a hoax and an insult. He was put off by the quality of a lot of the poetry he was reading, especially on a particular website, and by finding his own name attached to poems he didn't write, and considered to be awful. So he contrived to submit a truly awful poem to a contest there, and was shocked to be named a finalist. Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. One poet said that she searched specifically for "awful" phrases and pasted together her poems from these.

The whole thing struck me as more than a little pretentious and arrogant. I'm not a poet. But after an initial "what the hell is this shit" moment, I read a few more poems by Sharon Mesmer and found myself laughing a lot. The poets mine the internet, especially a well known search engine that is almost universally used, gooooooogly.
They then use a cut and paste method to assemble the verses.

This owes a lot to William S. Burroughs cut up and fold in techniques that he used in writing such punk icon books as "Exterminator", "Soft Machine" and "The Ticket that Exploded". Burroughs explained that he was trying to break old patterns of thinking, and of reading. We get used to oft repeated phrases and sequences of words and almost unconsciously write them and just as unconsciously absorb them when reading. He hoped to try to bring the art of collage to literature by juxtaposing phrases that conjure up unfamiliar images in the mind- at least in a new and unfamiliar way. To force us to think about what we are reading.

My own first attempt at flarf poetry is more of a cut up. I had for years thought about mining my spam folder for outrageous lines. I'd give examples right now but unfortunately I emptied that folder about an hour before I decided to write this explanatory post. I was talking about my first foray into flarf poetry with my wife and a friend yesterday, so it was on my mind. The first post I read today was by [blog _Lady_X_], [post 3625055]. She wanted to do a post promoting some of the male blogs she likes on the site- guys who are polite and respectful to other bloggers, and who are thoughtful about life in general. It was an attempt to promote fellowship and a sense of community, and to concentrate on the positive- that there are a lot of great guys blogging here, instead of criticizing the less than stellar performers.

She listed fifteen male bloggers that she was sure we'd enjoy reading. I had a eureka moment. I would mine these blogs for phrases that simply caught my eye- no other real reason. Just wherever my glance landed and liked the phrase. So, it isn't properly what flarf poets do- I wasn't looking for off-putting or awkward phrases. I wasn't looking for offensive subject matter. In fact, quite the opposite.

So, I visited all fifteen blogs and "mined" them. I listed them in groups by blogger and then set a rule for my first poem, fifteen lines, one line from each blog, and in random order. That was refining the ore. I then rearranged them to form a somewhat more coherent message. Metallurgy. The message that emerged turned out to be a love poem, Flarfing a lady. I liked it. My wife PD liked it.

I went where the phrases took me, selecting them at random at first, and then as a theme emerged, picking whatever I liked that seemed to fit. Once that line "No one needs you more than I need you" popped up, I knew where I wanted to go. The thing wrote itself. I just kind of bumped it now and then, kind of like pinball.

I haven't had a chance today to play around with my mined data any more. Things got busy, and now I'm way behind reading my watched blogs. My original intent was to flarf all day. Some of the early tries were pretty funny.

I'd appreciate your comments on the poem, and any future submissions. It ain't for everyone, but the connection to the godfather of punk, William S. Burroughs was irresistible to me, and I liked the fact that I was using exclusively material from this site. Incidentally, the blogs I read were good ones. I enjoyed them all, and I very likely would not have visited them without my friend's prompt.
17 Comments
Flarfing a lady
Posted:Apr 29, 2015 11:03 am
Last Updated:Jul 21, 2015 10:44 pm
16141 Views

No one needs you more than I need you
All I do hear is swooshing sounds and my heartbeat
I took these one night
the scent is delicious
the man who pleases the wife
purely for the hell of it
There is definitely something beautifully simple
in a McManiac Nation vessel
consider her pernicious pursuit of pendulous pappery.
consider the images, imagine possibilities
hope is what I will take
a tad of an improvement
"Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair"
into her sex therapist's office
this is a place to share the thoughts
14 Comments
Where Does Writing Come From?
Posted:Apr 25, 2015 7:22 pm
Last Updated:Feb 18, 2023 1:40 pm
17842 Views

Inspiration What Inspires Us To Is The Topic Of The Seventh Virtual Symposium

Where Does Writing Come From? by PD

Stupid question?

Not really.

Much as we'd like to say writing comes from our brains (the science of meat) or from our minds (the science of consciousness), the origin of writing is steeped in magic.

The first letters were almost certainly used as divination symbols. (Think of runes, for example.) Over time, the realization that simple symbols could hold complex patterns of meaning morphed into alphabets and words, and finally, written language.

Even during the early years of writing, the ability to write was considered in some degree to be a magical ability. Six hundred years before the year zero, fierce tribal cultures from the middle east invaded Greece and other parts of southern Europe, slaughtering everyone except the scribes.

Scribes were valuable because they could write and they could count, abilities few people had at that time. They were valuable to conquering kings because they could keep accurate record of riches and debts, and could record agreements and spoils of war.

Thousands of years before the year zero, Egyptian scribes had the ear of Egyptian kings, and also kept and practiced magical funerary rituals to usher kings and other wealthy citizens into the afterlife.

In our time, the word 'inspiration' comes from a root word meaning 'to breathe in', or, more specifically, to breathe in a god or gods or divine knowledge or divine fire. Hence the word 'scribe', indicating a person who simply writes stuff down, as in, takes dictation from something wholly other.

Today we think of inspiration in almost the opposite way. We see or hear something that gives us the idea that we might invent or compose some creative piece. In our modern understanding, we see this task as involving our imaginations with a small 'i'. We 'make stuff up' because some external stimulus gives us the desire to do so.

But just as inspiration has an older, more mystical meaning, imagination also has ancient magical origins. According to Jungian psychologists and others, primary imagination presents itself as something whole and other, as not-us, as a deep and present mystery.

One example of primary imagination is dreams. We do not sit down and 'make them up'. They come to us in the night with their own logic and form, whether we want them or not, whether we approve of them or not. But we also have inward faculties that, since the dawn of the Age of Reason, we have largely discarded or dumped into the psychology bin to be treated or explained away.

Insight, literally 'inner sight', involve looking within, not at the self (although this is how many understand insight) but at the emptiness that gives rise to the forms and agendas of primary imagination. If we practice we can see these forms, we can 'inspire' them by taking in divine breath and creating inner light and fire--illumination.

We can also listen inwardly, and take down what we hear.

In the 19th century, certain Victorian ladies, taken with the Spiritualist teachings of the time, would practice this inward listening through 'automatic writing'. They would drop into a light trance, and with their non-dominant hand, write entire books, supposedly channeled by spiritual entities.

I've often wondered about this. Victorian ladies weren't expected to do much at all except squeeze themselves into torturous corsetry and embroider linens and such. They weren't believed to be as intelligent as men. Certainly no one believed they could write books or have complex thoughts. Were they channeling their discarded selves?

Here's the wrinkle though: Once you admit the possibility that an intact self can be rejected by culture and inhabit some nether region, mind or brain, as a whole entity, you have to admit the possibility that other whole entities are out there too, just waiting for someone to write so they can speak to the living, the corporeal.

So these are my thoughts on inspiration. Life isn't just stranger than we know.

Life is stranger than we can know.

Put that in your laptop and write about it.



17 Comments
The Person from Porlock
Posted:Apr 25, 2015 7:15 pm
Last Updated:Feb 23, 2016 8:52 pm
17474 Views

Inspiration What Inspires Us To Is The Topic Of The Seventh Virtual Symposium

The Person from Porlock by Bill

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.


I think that "Kubla Khan" is one of the loveliest poems in the English language. It was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797. He subtitled it "Or, a vision in a dream. A fragment." Coleridge was an opium user- he had pretty poor health all his life and it's been suggested that he may have been bipolar. Some diagnosticians will swear that it's true- maybe they're right. I'm not a stickler about such things. It's enough for me to know that he was somewhat troubled from time to time, and that perhaps because of these troubles he left us some magnificent things to read. At any rate Coleridge treated his ailments with laudanum and became addicted to opium.

In the summer of 1797 Coleridge was sickly and retreated to a farmhouse between Linton and Porlock to rest. Porlock is a small coastal village in Somerset. There one day the author fell asleep in his chair while reading "Purchas's Pilgimes" (sp) a sort of travelogue of the mental excursions of Samuel Purchas. Not a traveller himself, Purchas had collected the writings of other voyagers- a sort of eighteenth century Michelin Guide. In this book Purchas told of "Cublai Can" who had commanded to be built a magnificent palace in "Xaindu".

Coleridge recalled that he had fallen asleep in his chair while reading- "At least a sleep of the external senses"- which sounds very like an opium dream to those of us who have had them. When he came to himself, the poem "Kubla Khan" was in his head and he immediately set at writing it down while it was still fresh in his mind. Before he was able to finish there came a knock at his door by someone later described by Coleridge to be "a person from Porlock." He was kept more than an hour by this unwanted visitor and found when he returned to "Kubla Khan" that it had vanished from his head, and he was unable to bring it back. He tried to round it out from the snippets that remained in his memory, but the muse had flown, not to return again.

This was Coleridge's explanation for why "Kubla Khan' was so short a poem. He had of course been entreated to finish it- it is tantalizingly brief, and I am one reader among so many who yearn to read more. But the author declared that it was no use. His inspiration had been lost and he couldn't get it back again.

Coleridge's story of the person from Porlock has been doubted. It's been suggested that he simply lost his vision- that the inspiration evaporated and that he concocted this invention to explain his failure of imagination. This seems presumptuous to me.

The poem was Coleridge's. The muse was his, the inspiration was his and the genius was his. Reading the lines of "Kubla Khan" they seem to me to be inspired, and I know whereof he speaks. I haven't dreamt anything so grand or so soaring as "Kubla Khan", but I have emerged from an opium dream speaking to someone who wasn't there, carrying on a conversation that no one heard me having, telling a story that was entirely a mental construct, the product of a half waking opium inspired reverie. And I've seen the puzzled looks of those around me, as if to say "What on earth are you talking about?"

And in fact that question has been asked of me- what on earth are you talking about? They bring you back to earth, a little bit, maybe not permanently, but long enough that the reverie fades, and when you again lapse into the land of "Forty Thousand Headmen" the landscape and characters have morphed into something else, and you can't get back again. You try to find the entrance again to those "caverns measureless to man" but it's as if they have sailed in orbit round to the far side of the sun, and it's now dark to you. It's like waking from any dream, any "normal" dream, that you've become attached to. That magickal place where you had been was so full of wonder that you are loathe to leave it, and this is why many of us write those dreams down, just as Coleridge did write "Kubla Khan", and then had it torn from him by that person from Porlock. It must have been wrenching for him to lose Xanadu.

"Kubla Khan" is brilliant and beautiful and it is all Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It may have been drawn from him by opium. It might have been channeled through him, enabled by the poppy to act as medium, but the words and the inspiration are his. And I believe his explanation of how his muse was shredded that day in the summer of 1797. It's happened to me, so I know. My own dreams were not so grand, and I was not so inspired as Coleridge, and I wrote nothing down, but I have felt that anguish of being yanked into a dreary world not of my making from a better, brighter and mystical one of my own.

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
24 Comments
How dare they?! A post by petitandnaughty
Posted:Apr 23, 2015 7:43 pm
Last Updated:Apr 25, 2015 7:09 pm
15979 Views


How dare they
How dare they?!

My friend and fellow blogger [blog petitandnaughty] has a new post up about blog trolls, and it's a fine one. How dare they You're invited to read it and participate. This was a bit of a collaborative effort, but she did the hard work of doing the research and writing the post on her own. If you've read my own post on this topic and the terrific posts by [blog _Lady_X_], you'll understand that we were fed up with certain trolls. This isn't an effort to censor speech, it's an attempt to reassure bloggers and commenters here that they don't have to tolerate it. You can ban these people from your blogs, and should. You can block them from having any contact with you, and you should. And you can speak up when you see them taunting others. The intent was to create a post that would be a forum for bloggers to tell their own stories and feel free to name names and point fingers if they like. We won't get anywhere by pretending it isn't happening, or by pulling punches.

The more experienced bloggers know from their experience just how to deal with trolls. But there are a lot of new people here who haven't had to deal with it before. This forum is for them, and for those others who the trolls have tried to beat down. The forum may appear to be ABOUT the trolls, but it's FOR the bloggers they target. Those people need to know they have supporters here who don't like trolls any more than they do. Please read [blog petitandnaughty]'s post and treat it as an open forum. Share your stories and experiences, and what you did about it. Ask questions. But do participate- this is OUR blog community, and we have standards.

How dare they
9 Comments
A Word or Two about Blogging and Trolls
Posted:Apr 22, 2015 2:21 pm
Last Updated:Jun 14, 2015 6:47 pm
16798 Views

Last night [blog _Lady_X_] wrote an open letter to an obnoxious troll who's been haunting the bloggers here: [post 3621145]. If you read my post I'd like to encourage you to read that post. It needed to be said. She followed it up with a clarification today, [post 3621554] (Community X). You should read that one too. I've already stated my own opinion in comments on her blog posts and in other comments I've made in other blogs. Those posts were made to offer moral support to people who been harassed by the immature misogynists whose parents are apparently unaware that their are online, on this site, poking and picking at women they think might be susceptible to bullying. The comments they leave are meant to pick at scabs and sores that we expose when we open up about ourselves.

Most of us come here and blog to have fun with each other. We don't usually care for drama and try hard not to create it. Sometimes it happens anyway. It's part of being human that we will sometimes argue, and that we will often not agree.

The trolls are different. They're here just to hurt people's feelings and to stir things up, to create strife where there wasn't any. If they silence anyone with their childish bullshit, we all lose. This place works best as an open forum where we can feel free to speak without being heckled.

I won't restate what [blog _Lady_X_] has already said so well- and vehemently. I am completely in agreement with everything she wrote and with how she wrote it.

Please read those posts, and take it to heart. We need to look after one another here and keep this as a fun place to visit and learn about each other. Speak up, and speak out.
38 Comments   (Page:)
Pimping the Seventh Virtual Symposium
Posted:Apr 21, 2015 8:29 am
Last Updated:Apr 27, 2015 7:34 pm
15278 Views
Inspiration What Inspires Us To Is The Topic Of The Seventh Virtual Symposium

The topic for the Seventh Virtual Symposium has been selected by popular vote! There have been six symposia before, so this one we will refer to as the seventh, out of custom and out of habit. That also will help to satisfy our sense of order.

Virtue is said to be its own reward. I'm skeptical. I tend to think of sin as being its own reward. Any punishment for sin that is meted out later and after the fact is extraneous and most likely excessive. We might sometimes be duped into believing that there will be a heavenly reward for practicing virtue, but I've seen what actually happens to those people. They stalk around with pinched faces and stiff necks, glaring accusingly at us sinners, as if we were hogging all the fun. For God's sake, if you can't bring yourself to jump in with both feet and sin enthusiastically, and with gusto, at least rub out a sour one quietly in the broom closet now and then to spare the rest of us from your unripe persimmon face.

A symposium is perhaps best thought of as a convivial gathering of inquisitive minds for the purpose of exchanging ideas, bullshit and getting drunk. There is also the possibility that there will be sex! The more you drink the greater the likelihood that there will be sex, and the lower the quality of that sex will be. Life is a delicate balancing act. Drink too little or too much...and you have Koyaanisqatsi- life out of balance. It's an intriguing movie, but you'll be attending alone.

So that's it! Share your thoughts about inspiration with us! We really do want to know how and what you think!

This has been a pro bono advertisement for the Seventh Virtual Symposium, the brainchild of [blog humorguaranteed]. Click the link heading this post to visit his blog for details about the very lax criteria governing the Symposium, or simply click his name in this footnote. Either one will get you off.


18 Comments
Campaign Links- McManiac for President
Posted:Apr 20, 2015 5:43 pm
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2015 8:03 am
22528 Views

I think I have all the posts made promoting the Presidential run of our favorite mcmaniac listed here. If I've missed one please leave a message and I'll post it here.

Campaign Links:

10 April 2015 - [post 3615152] I Would Like To Announce My Candidacy for the Office of President of the United States mcmaniac

11 April 2015
McManiac for President - McManiac for President! kzoopair

12 April 2015
[post 3615824] - Mcmaniac for President! [blog kathynj]
Orgasms and Weed - Orgasms and Weed! kzoopair
[post 3616075] - A New Plan for the Old World mcmaniac

20 April 2015
[post 3620486] - The Saga Continues! mcmaniac
Power to the Perverts McManiac Nation - Power to the Perverts! McManiac Nation! [blog petitandnaughty]
McManiac For President Campaign Promotion 1 - McManiac For President - Campaign Promotion #1 normalisoktoo


23 April 2015
A MANIAC FOR PRESIDENT - A Maniac for President spunkycumfun

[post 3621965] - Our Next President........... [blog KtMnDu]
[post 3622015] - McManiac for President, meanwhile across the pond...[blog kathynj]

24 April 2015
[post 3622629] - The Sextitution! mcmaniac


25 April 2015
[post 3622970] - The Cum Spangled Sinner [blog _Lady_X_]

Look Out, Hillary McManiac Presidential Run Offers Alternative Swinging Candidacy -Look Out, Hillary: McManiac Presidential Run Offers Alternative Swinging Candidacy [blog humorguaranteed]
[post 3622835] - Sexretary lily [blog MidcoastMILF]

27 April 2015
McManiac For President Campaign Promotion 2 - McManiac For President - Campaign Promotion #2 normalisoktoo

30 April 2015
[post 3625671] - The Hello Kitty Contingent Is On Board..........[blog KtMnDu]
[post 3625753] - Blow and Go Day [blog MidcoastMILF]
23 Comments
Bad news, good news
Posted:Apr 17, 2015 9:01 pm
Last Updated:May 7, 2015 8:10 pm
18451 Views

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Gracie got sick, and I felt bad for her. But I can't take her hiking so she had to stay home and rest.

For the last several months my Macbook has been slowly bogging down. I'm using AssPlace again, and I visit a couple of other sites for news that are memory and processor hogs. This site actually works pretty well, as far as not slowing down my machine. Most of what I used to do on it was genealogical research, and most of that is text. But now I'm using sites with lots of bling and graphics, and AssPlace is a damned memory pirate. I'm also using a browser that is NOT all that is is hyped up to be. Its initials are GC and it sucks. I've had to close windows instead of leaving them open to save memory and conserve resources.

But I tried using a couple of others, and they really didn't perform a lot better. Even the native Apple browser isn't what it used to be. I spent a lot of time tweaking and throwing away shit I just never use. I also spent a good deal of time experimenting with turning browser extensions off and on and playing with the results. I got results, they just were really really uninspiring.

Since I couldn't take Gracie to Al Sabo, PD and I headed out for the Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail, and on the way I stopped at the local big box electronics store and found some RAM for my Macbook. It had two gigs of RAM from the factory in two slots. I upgraded to the maximum eight gigs, two four gig sticks. Apple recommends having sticks in each slot, and that's the way I've always upgraded memory in the past.

We then walked three miles at the creek and came home with burgers for dinner. As soon as we got done I unscrewed the base plate and inserted the new RAM. Eureka! Excelsior! Full speed ahead and damn the torpedos!

It booted up fast and loads every page in...I can't even compare how much faster it is with plenty of memory. This thing is rumbling in my lap like a Maserati. I had to duct tape it to my thighs because it wants to shoot off into the air like a Saturn IV B rocket. My testicles are already empty from the heat and vibrating power and I'm getting hard again. Now I know why some of those geek never leave Mom's basement.

I had no real reason to be dragging my feet about this upgrade. I was just lazy and tried all kinds of stuff i didn't have much faith in before spending the seventy five bucks for more RAM.

It don't take much to keep me happy these days, does it?
26 Comments   (Page:)
Medical issues
Posted:Apr 17, 2015 9:09 am
Last Updated:May 8, 2015 9:32 am
17992 Views
Gracie has Lyme disease.

She started getting tired easily on our hikes, but the weather had turned quite warm and although it seemed odd that a not yet two year old Lab was tired so quickly, I kept my eye on her and waited to see if she'd acclimate. Instead she got more lethargic over the next couple of walks. The final straw was the last hike, when she got balky early in the hike.

We took her to the vet next day and he confirmed what we had suspected- it's Lyme disease.

We began seeing deer ticks here last year in large numbers. They're a bitch because they are so small and hard to find. They aren't as hard to spot on my own skin but it can get next to impossible on a hairy dog. I've had dogs all my life and I'm used to patting them down for ticks and pulling them with tweezers, but the deer tick is a challenge. I have also started to see ticks in winter. In the old days this was pretty much unheard of, but there has been a huge increase in ticks around here. I found and pulled a tick from Rocky in February, in cold weather.

Deer ticks have to be attached- biting- for a good twenty four hours to transmit the disease. Most other tick borne illnesses work the same way- a simple bite is not enough to cause infection- it takes some time, usually twenty four to forty eight hours.

Gracie will be on a thirty day antibiotic treatment- we found it early and it's a relatively easy cure. We're switching her to a new tick prevention method, an oral medication that offers protection against fleas. Fleas have been showing up that have resistance to the topical treatment we used to use, Frontline. I've never seen a flea on Gracie, but the Nexguard should be a more effective treatment.

She can't go hiking for three or four days, and then I can ease her back into it as she gets feeling better. There is joint pain with Lyme disease along with the lethargy so she'll have to be restrained for a while. Most dogs are pretty stoic and Gracie is a ball of fire ordinarily- she won't slow down unless she's really hurting.

She seems to feel a little better today, but she's still sleeping a lot. She does like taking her meds though. I bury them in a glob of peanut butter and she takes them easily. Rocky used to lick the peanut butter off and spit out the pill, so I had to stick them down his throat. Gracie is a peanut butter junky and she doesn't care what you hide inside it!


38 Comments   (Page:)

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