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| My senior guy at Addison Oaks earlier this year |
"I have a feeling we're going to be doing a lot of running today," I said to Sensi as I leashed him up for our daily walk/jog/hike (I never know whether we'll do one, a mix or all).
I was right.
I'm not sure how else to deal with the deer flies.
Too many of them attack us to wait for them to land and swat them away. And quite honestly, there are some bugs I don't mind swatting with my hand and some I do. Deer flies fall into that "I mind" category, yet I will swat them to avoid getting bitten or have my dog get bitten.
Those of you with long-haired pooches may not have as much of a problem dealing with deer flies attacking your dog, but for short haired dogs, it's so easy for the pesky bugs to land a good bite just about anywhere on my dog's body.
He's mildly allergic to them too, every successful deer fly bite leaving a nice big welt on him. (I give him Benadryl to help with that).
And as for me, well. I do love the great outdoors. Biting flies make me love it a little less.
I've noticed the deer flies out and about in increasing numbers every day this week.
Today's walk — we just returned from it — was particularly bad.
The only solution I can come up with is maintaining a decent clip. So we jog. At a few different points today, the flies were particularly nasty — chasing us fervently, determined to land a bite. So we ran. Fast.
One of the park deputies (driving a golf cart) spotted us at the very beginning of the 2.5-mile loop, just after hauling butt up a trying hill. It's a good way to get ourselves moving, I figure.
"You look more tired than the dog," he commented. Ha ha. Thanks for the reminder that my senior citizen and fur-coated dog is in better shape than me.
Half-hour later he saw us at the other end of the loop, just finishing up.
"Wow, you're making good time," he said.
I smiled. "Yeah, lots of running today," I said.
I wanted to say: "Yeah, lots of running from all the damn deer flies today."
The upside of all of this may just be that I could very well be in the market for a new belt pretty soon.
I've worked my way down not one or two or three belt loops, but I'm all the way to the tightest loop now. The downside is that I also need new pants (I don't like shopping). Even my blue jeans are all bunched up around my waist.
I hope it goes without saying that bug spray doesn't deter biting flies one bit.
So, Sensi and I will be running our little hearts out this summer.
And he, of course, will be making me look bad the whole while.
Do you have any deer fly solutions? Please, if you do, share them.
Just saw this. Over the years I have found that wearing a broad brimmed hat that also has a cover for the back of my neck as well as a light colored long sleeve shirt and light colored long pants definitely helps keep deer flies off of me. I wonder if a light-colored dog coat would help the dog?
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