Ear Mite Adventure

I live in a zoo. Yes, I have several breeds of animals in a 2-bedroom apartment... So, as any pet owner knows, there are lots of questionable messes to clean up along the road of pet ownership.

We've had our fair share of puke, diarrhea, and hairballs on the carpet, on shoes, and yes, even on a pile of clean laundry. (Yeah, that was a bad day.)

But, the latest pet mess takes the cake. My beloved Maximus has ear mites. According to Google, ear mites are tiny little fuckers that can't really be seen with the naked eye (and that's a direct quote, y'all). They are white and tiny and creepy crawl all over the inside of dog and cat ears. That's not the grossest part of it, though. What's nasty is that the ear mites leave waste behind... This waste turns into an icky, coffee-ground, brownish, skanky funk that invades poor Max's ears and looks like chunks of... well... chunks of something nasty.

Tonight, I was more brave bored than usual (but, also felt a little sorry for the poor guy) and decided to take a crack at a home remedy for these mites or at least try to pry some of them out with a Q-tip...

So, as I'm straddling my 30-pound cat and holding his head down in a wrestling move any coach would be proud of, I realize that we don't need a Q-tip here... We need a BUSH HOG.

Yeah, those little nasties have pretty much taken up permanent residence in Max's ear holes and invited all the other mites in the neighborhood, too, for a great big down home critter bar-b-q. It takes a village, I guess... UGH!

Little does Max know, but I'm about to pour some slippery, slimy oil into his poor head. Apparently, the vegetable or olive oil will smother the mites and also loosen up the chunks. Yum. I'm sitting on the kitchen floor with my bottle of extra virgin olive oil, Q-tips, cotton balls, and some other kind of balls (because, you know... performing any sort of procedure on a cat takes cojones). Carefully, I inspect the inside of his blocked up, foul-smelling, blackened ears and let a few drops of olive oil slime into the canal...

Yeah. Just a forewarning to any pet owners thinking about using this seemingly innocent and cheap home remedy... Bad idea, unless you're in a tiled room with a shower nozzle within reach. Max got irritated by the slime in his ear (of course... silly me for not thinking that far ahead) and let loose with shaking his head like crazy, and all of these blobs of ear mite goop came flying out and all over the kitchen floor, cabinets, his fur, and me. Fun times, y'all. Fun times.

After the initial explosion of black blobs, the rest of the gunk was pretty easily wiped out of his ears. I only threw up in my mouth a little bit, too! Oh, the things I do for my animals. I disinfected the kitchen floor, cabinets, and counters and washed my hands like a schizophrenic person with OCD, and the deed was done. I'm positive that the mess got completely cleaned up...

But, as I'm sitting here eating a banana off the counter, I see Maximus walk by shaking his head....

Hmmm. Maybe I'll do the mite procedure in the bathtub next time...