F-ing Fire Ants

[GypsyDogs]

Poor Miss Knez apparently stepped on fire ant/s with a rear foot..
Hub texts that she is chewing it bloody..
Hastily leave work, and head home
(He tried to help by putting wound treatment on her foot.. thankfully nothing that could harm her if ingested!)
I did a thorough check for injury- found nothing overt- and began cold compress, .. called vet.. they confirmed use of antihistamines and confirmed an appropriate dose.

After about 30 min of cold and absorbing drugs.. she was no longer Frantically trying to chew/lick her foot off.

Again,  F-ing Bastidges!  Hate them passionately.

[Wayne49]

Fire ants are a not so fond memory during two years of living in Montgomery, Alabama, 1957-58. Playing in a vacant lot and falling down on an ant hill.

Air Force father, started out in 8th AF WW2, dealt with the ant hills by strategically deploying burning gasoline.

"The smell of victory."

Another memory was large snakes swimming in a nearby canal/river (not sure what it was called).

[GotSmart]

9 parts corn meal, 1 part boric acid

[GotSmart]

Old timers poison for fire ants

[rvpopeye]

Hope she remembers what bit her and you don't have any reruns , and she heals up quickly.

Glad you clarified that Badgernator, I thought it was for putting on the bites ! Skuh kuh kuh kuh
Guess dogs in fire ant territory need 'ant respect" training to avoid them.
Probably pretty easy .
The hard part is knowing you need to do it before you go where they live.
Or dogs just find out the hard way . Better than learning about snakes or scorpions the hard way...

My dog was very curious about bugs and liked to play with the carpenter ants we have so many of here uptah camp.
They lasted much longer than other bugs did !
Well ,one day in Alabama her first encounter in '81? ended that She was about 4 then . Apparently , they attacked her feet and she tried to bite them off.
When I noticed them she had come to me and had them hanging off her lips and toes with a few strays ....it took me a while to remove them all , I wasn't familiar with them that close .
I removed them but they left marks ! We had a talk about Leave It over the dead ants.! She never touched any ant again. And the command worked for everything else after that one lesson.

Some dogs learn right away like mine. But I had a friend with a big golden retriever and that one liked to chew on porcupines , like once a week. My friend pulled them out with pliers each time.. It took him a while to break the habit but maybe the dog just killed off all the porkies ? Arrrrrrrrgh He was a dumby but you could throw a rock out in the ocean 20' , in 6 ' of water and he would swim out , dive down and bring that rock back every time and was the best with ducks !

[FresnoBound]

nasty little things those fire ants.

If your dog is biting a wound you really need one of those 'recovery collars' the vet puts on after a procedure.
They're a real nuisance at the time.  But the only way to stop a dog picking at a wounds or stitches.

[GypsyDogs]

I have a safety collar for her.. but in this case I treated the Cause of the pain and distress- not just force her to be unable to reach it.

She was not biting a wound- she was trying to remove the source of the burning pain that the fire ants caused.

Also- the way my dog is engineered.. when needed, we use a carpet collar, not a cone. Works better for her.

[GotSmart]

No cone of shame.

[RoamerRV428]

ohhh sorry on that one.
we got alot of hills out in my back pasture areas. Destroy them and back they come...they are f*****g annoying suckers.