Hi, First, I want to say that I have never been so overwhelmed with love and concern in my mailbox from such a great group of people. You are so special and caring. Thank you so much! I wrote that we lost Little Girl and that she returned... with LOTS of ticks! Believe it or not, she came home on her own! I would never have believed it! She came home while I was making more LOST posters to put up about her! It was 12:30 AM and I told my husband to check the front door because someone was scratching... he thought I was hearing things and wishful thinking too. But when he opened the door... in she runs!!! She had the look of "There's no place like home!" It was a miracle!!! Truly! I would have never thought she would find her way back... because she is like the Energizer Bunny. She goes and goes... almost in a straight line. I was sure she was in the next county by then! But she was covered in ticks! There were about two dozen on her. You also helped there! Most said putting vaseline on the tick would smother them and make them pull out...but we had no vaseline. So another suggested alcohol or peroxide... so we tried what we had: Peroxide. IT WORKED! We saturated a cotton ball and held it on the tick and as he backed out, we usually got him! It also worked as an antiseptic too. Then we had some old ferret flea and tick shampoo and bathed her and more died! We took her to the vet today (remember the holiday weekend...kids only get sick on holidays!) and she removed all the other ticks and heads. She said the peroxide was a wonderful idea because when we did that, even if the head stayed in, we prevented an infection until we brought her in. She was convinced we had did so well, no antibiotics were needed BUT keep a good watchful eye... and we are. We also had her two brothers checked out and all seem well... tick-wise! The vet told us something else I didn't know... that FLEAS were more of a danger to her than ticks. She said if those would have been fleas biting her in that large amount, she would have been one sick lady. So this is a good testimony to the flea prevention called PROGRAM that we use on the kids, because she had NO FLEAS!!! There has been one side story to this saga... her two brothers attacked her when she got home! Both of them started biting her and dragging her and she was starting to wonder why she came home!!! It has taken us two days to get them all integrated again... had not expected that reaction by the brothers! Someone told me that since she is female, the pecking order had to be reestablished. It was when she started fighting back that they started to let her alone...but we were there ALL the time making sure she was OK (the big bullies..ha)! Thanks again for everything... this story had a happy ending. Let's all pray everyone's does! Kiss your fuzzbutts for me, Pam & Mark Howell INDY: "I told ya she would be back..." BEAR: "Does that mean I have to give back the socks and bells?" [Posted in FML issue 3069]