Month: August 2012

Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Safe Flea Removal

Synetech Leave a comment

If your pet picks up fleas, don’t bother with expensive chemicals and poisons, let alone needles. There is a much safer and cheaper way to get rid of them.

Simply get a lice-comb (like the kind that you use when children get lice at school). They are at the drug-store for one or two dollars. Comb the pet thoroughly a couple of times a day with the lice-comb to remove the fleas and their eggs.

In addition, wash your pet a few times a week (yes, even cats). Get a plastic box like a Rubbermaid storage container. Put it in the tub, fill it with warm, soapy water and soak your pet in it for a few minutes, massaging the (gentle) soap into their fur. Make sure to thoroughly soak them, but of course be careful of their face.

Finally, thoroughly vacuum all areas that they go to or use (blankets, beds, chairs, holes, etc.) a few times per week to prevent re-infestation.

To summarize:

  1. Comb with lice-comb a couple of times per day
  2. Soak and wash a couple of times per week
  3. Vacuum a few times per week

It may seem like a lot of work (certainly more than simply spraying them with poison or wrapping poison around their neck or shooting them full of chemicals with a needle), but it’s safer and cheaper and more reliable. Besides, if you stick to it, it does not take long and can be over in as little as two weeks.

Fight or Flight vs. Recognition

Synetech Leave a comment

I had an interesting experience with my cat. I turned around and saw her standing there, and because I was not expecting her to be there, I was surprised and jumped. It has probably happened plenty of times in different ways for most people, but the long and short of it is that sometimes we get shocked and react to something that is completely innocuous.

Why?

The brain has different parts that are responsible for recognizing things (especially faces) and for reacting to danger. One part is responsible for “fight or flight” whereby the body almost entirely automatically reacts to perceived threats. Another part is responsible for analyzing visual input and determining what is being looked at.

This scared-by-the-familiar response is very revealing and to be honest, not surprising. It shows that the part of the brain that detects and reacts to danger functions at a “lower-level”, a more base instinct and thus faster and at a higher priority than the part that recognizes objects which is a somewhat higher-level function (though obviously not exclusive to humans). This is not a surprise because fight-or-flight is a survival instinct and more important (at least more immediate) than object/person recognition.