Chester: Dog lice

*Gasp* Chester has got dog lice infestation!

Chester has been scratching himself a lot lately, I thought he was just allergic to dust or something. When I inspected his skin, it was just a bit flaky, there were also some dry wounds, so I assumed he was just scratching himself too much, too hard. The scratching got worse to the extent that he couldn't sleep well and had problem focusing. I tried to look for ticks on his body but to no avail (usually ticks are very easy to be spotted). I looked harder and this is what I found.

My previous dog had not been infested with this little thing before, so I had no idea what it was. I looked up in the Internet and found out that this thing is actually a dog louse!

Dog louse (Credit: Google)

Dog lice are really tiny, but big enough to be seen by a naked eye. It has a brownish black head which looks like a speck of dirt on Chester's body. Looking for the dog lice is quite a challenge because its body colour is so close to Chester's.

Size: 1-2mm

There are 2 types of dog lice: the skin chewing one and the blood sucking one (which is much more irritating). The dog lice that infested my dog's body are the skin chewing ones, hence the flaky dry wounds. Luckily dog lice do not infest human hair! Chester sleeps on my bed sometimes.

I bought this spray to kill the dog lice and a cream to heal the wounds. It will take some time for the dog lice to be eradicated but this spray seems to be working. For the time being, Chester is not allowed on my bed even though I won't get those lice from him but I don't want to sleep with him when he has pesticide sprayed all over his body!

I am sure Chester will be fine soon. He went for his first grooming session yesterday. When he came home after the grooming session, looking sexy and all, I took some pictures of him playing with his favorite rubber squeaky ball.

Omg, he is so cute! Ok people, I gotta study now. 3 more weeks and I will be a free bird. :)