Sulphur and chiggers?

Hi Val

I saw the post about the usefulness of sulfur as an alternative to more toxic insect repellants.  BEWARE do not get it on your clothes or in any fabric that you wish to use under normal conditions...NOTHING gets the smell out.  I tried it last year to help me avoid being bitten by insects, especially chiggers. I sprinkled it around my socks and pant legs and put a little on my wrists and in the sleeves of my shirt. It worked very well and I did not have any chigger bites. I then washed my clothes with the others and the entire load of clothes smelled like sulfur. I followed every recommendation for how to wash out the smell.  Nothing worked and some made it worse.  One mistake is to use hot water or the hot air of a dryer which makes the
sulfur smell worse.

Next year during the chigger season I will dedicate some walking clothes to the sulfur repellant effect, and I will keep them separate from my other clothes.

And note about ticks; my dog recently had Lyme's disease..and I knew only because I insisted on a blood analysis. She is 9 years old and was limping and lacked energy, but her appetite was good . The vet told me she was just "slowing down" because of age and arthritis.  Lyme's disease is worse than piroplasmosis in a sense because the symptoms are less obvious and the damage to organs and joints occurs slowly. Hence it is usually not diagnosed properly; and the blood test along with the long antibiotic treatment are very costly. Seeing my dog now running and playing again made it worth the cost.

Lyme's disease is also on the rise so be aware. I now check my dog every day for ticks in addition to using tick repellants. Before the experience with Lyme I was rather casual about it. But after paying 500 euros to cure my dog it is clear that prevention is the best option. The longer a tick is on the dog the greater the chance of harmful bacteria being transmitted, so finding the tick and removing it as soon as possible it the essential. However, even if the odds are small there is still a chance that the disease can be transmitted quickly.  Alas, so do not assume that an older dog is "slowing down" only because of age. 
Jeannine
Val says  my first thought - what are " chiggers" googling   Chiggers are the juvenile form (larvae) of a certain type of mite of the family Trombiculidae. Mites are arachnids (like spiders and ticks). I think they are  "aoûtat"
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