Puke

Last night I was laying on the couch, absentmindedly scratching Crosby's ears when I felt what I thought was a burdock. She had a few thousand burdocks stuck to her when she emerged black from the swamp the other day, so I tried to dislodge it but it wouldn't budge. So I sat up, parted the fur around her ear to get a better look, and the most disgusting thing greeted me (see picture below)- a tick, engorged with blood. After swallowing the puke that threatened to spill out of my mouth, I had to pull the thing off her ear with a pair of tweezers. After I was done, I looked up ticks on the internet to make sure I had done it properly and after about 5 minutes of looking at all these pictures of ticks, I felt nauseous. Barf. I even found a picture of one attached to a toddler's head. That almost made me panic but they are not like fleas, so the odds of having more than one was low. Needless to say, the animals got a thorough checking for any other suspicious lumps.