BNOTB
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Pet Owners (PSA)
Last night my H and I were talking about how warm this "winter" season was, and how it didn't bode well for insects this summer. Shortly after this conversation, I found the second tick of the season (first one was about two weeks ago), both walking around on me. I saw this message this morning, and it kind of confrims my fears. 
http://gawker.com/5896719/ticks-are-the-hot-new-plague-of-2012
I just thought I would pass it on. Make sure you keep up to date with the Frontline, Vectra, or whichever insect deterriant you use,
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Re: Pet Owners (PSA)
Ick.
I try not to put chemicals on my dog, but we have been spreading Diatomaceous Earth around the backyard and dusting it on the carpet, vacuuming it up later. I also work it into his coat once a day. I've never seen a tick on him, but the neighbors have already had a flea infestation since it stopped raining week before last... I'm trying to avoid such a nasty catastrophe.
P.S. In case anyone didn't know, tick collars aren't great for pets.
Thanks for the reminder, we do have ours on a flea and tick prevention medicine but I will be sure to keep an extra eye out.
Also, the last part of the article did make me chuckle:
Can Tim Tebow stop god's hovering army of vampirish ticks? Soft-fleshed gays and tasty abortionists certainly hope so.
We're actually really, really lucky in this aspect. We have fire ants - fire ants eat ticks. I've never once seen a tick on any of our critters
::crosses fingers::
Same here. And we have our yard sprayed for this reason.
Made me chuckle as well.
Flea/ Tick Collars have never worked on my pets, and knowing now how bad they are, I definitely stay away from them.
I honestly never knew fire ants ate ticks. That's good to know.
Does this actually work for you? We tried it and the fleas came back just as hard. We eventually stopped because a friend who words with food-grade DE said it's not safe to use on our cat (not sure if he was right, seeing as how the company said it was fine), and it wasn't working anyway.
We don't get ticks that I've seen, but it sure as hell didn't stop the fleas.
It works great for us, kills on contact. Maybe you weren't using enough?
Our kitties are indoor only, so *hopefully* we don't drag anything in ourselves.
Huh, maybe. They put down a lot, I thought, but maybe we didn't keep with it long enough or something. But our flea problem is pretty nasty. We live on the river, and as a result apparently our fleas come from the river rats that live along the water's edge (not to mention the stray cats). The pest guy says they are like super fleas.
It's so annoying because we have to clean out the beds by the front door constantly and keep things from getting too dry.
Does DE work on ticks though? I thought it was only soft-bodied insects...I used it in Texas.
Now I'm in Maine and the ticks are SO bad. We also live in the woods so it doesn't help. I've found two baby ticks on one of my dogs so far and I don't even allow them in the actual woods. I hate using chemicals too but you really have to up here. Even the grass in our yard isn't safe.