Insect repellants and sunscreen

SUMMARY:  What works, what doesn't, how to apply; my summary from Consumer Reports July 2015

Tick on my jeans, Sierra Azul, April 2008

I'm active (well... was.  well... sometimes am). I like to be out and about, which puts me into the open air at times of the day and locations where bugaboos (mosquitos and ticks in particular) like to go bitey bitey bitey, and when the sun is high and harsh. The odds of developing dangerous skin cancer (melanoma) are increasing rapidly (about 1 in 50 people will develop it) with all the crap we've wrought upon our atmosphere, and the increasing incidences of West Nile Virus and such also are as a result of our meddling.

So, some useful info (mostly because I can never remember the important bits, so here it is).

Check the issue of the magazine for details.

Insect repellents

(They didn't address whether these are safe for pets.)

• Apply repellants only to exposed skin and clothing, not underneath. Don't apply directly to face; apply to hands and rub onto face. Use just enough to cover; applying too much chemical does not work better.
  
• They say, "At the end of the day, wash treated skin with soap and water, and wash treated clothing in a separate wash before wearing again." (Emphasis mine; interesting.)
• My summary of what works:
• Best: 20% picaridin
• Best: 30% oil of lemon eucalyptus
• Good: 15-25% Deet, varied by other ingredients, so sometimes a 15% blend is more effective (see report). Do NOT go over 30%.
• Good: Sit near a full-power fan, blows away a lot of mosquitos.
• My summary of what doesn't:
  
•  "All-natural" repellants, (The best were effective no more than an hour, and others didn't work at all.
• Wristbands.  
• Skin So Soft (despite persistent lore).
• Citronella candles, portable antimosquito diffusers.

Sunscreen

What works:

• SPF 30 or higher with UVA and UVB (broad-spectrum) protection.
   (UVA rays are present during the day no matter the weather or time of day or year, promote the aging of skin, and increase the likelihood of developing melanoma. UVB are more present from 10 to 4 and on sunny days, and cause redness/burning. Therefore, use a broad spectrum that protects against both (again, claims might be inaccurate).)
• Hanes Beefy-Ts and Eastbay Evapor long-sleeved compression crew both provided over 100 SPF, so you don't even have to buy special SPF clothing.

What doesn't work:

• You can't always trust the SPF on the container. Use CR's list of tested items.

  

  Ouch. March 2008

• "all natural" or mineral screens don't usually work that well. CU rates only one even Good, but if you have allergies, you could consider that one (California Baby Super Sensitive 30+).

Buying:

• You don't have to pay a ton to get good results (see ratings).
• They don't have to be gross and oily (some might start that way but rub in w/in 30 seconds and then are fine).

Applying:

• Apply 15-30 minutes before going out into the sun. Reapply sunscreen every 2 hours even if your skin isn't looking red, because the damage might not be visible until a while after it actually occurs.
• 1 teaspoon per body part (e.g., neck, arm)

Get out there and be safe!  (That's a note to me just as much as anyone.)

Another Device Dog Owners Shouldn't Be Without

SUMMARY: The Tick Key!

Bummer that I never got around to setting up my web site so that, when someone clicks through from Taj MuttHall to buy something, I get 3 cents for it, because you will all want this, I guarantee it.

I am completely sold. No more tweezers, pluckers, grabbers for me. This has worked amazingly well. An agility friend--Jersey and Sheila's Human Mom--showed it to me when we were out hiking, and I was mildly skeptical about the gimmick factor, but it worked nicely for her, so I ordered one (purple, of course) and have had it since mid-winter.

O.M.G! It works so well, on my dogs. Pure genius! The big seller today is that, after my romp in the creek bed on saturday, it never occurred to me to check myself for ticks. So there I was at work, scratched at my scalp, and there was a daggummed tick. I could barely see it in the mirror, it was far enough around my skull. Fortunately the tick key was in the car. I was able to get it under the tick and remove the little bloodsucker with almost no effort at all, and no pinching or squeezing as it comes off (which you're supposed to avoid so that you don't squish any disease into your dog, which is difficult to avoid at times).

I am SO SOLD on this thing. Before, when ticks have liked my hair, it's been off to the doctor's office or find a nearby assistant with some experience at pulling ticks off. This replaces all that.

Well worth the $7 or whatever they charge.

Here's their web site: http://www.tickkey.com/; some pet stores carry it, too.

They even have a youtube video on how to use it, if you're not too squeamish to see ticks close up.

Bleahhhhh

SUMMARY: Sick.

So here's the thing. A little sore throat midweek last week. Then this odd thing where one side of my nose started running like crazy. Felt plenty good enough over the weekend to go to the movies, get a christmas tree, and go for a really excellent hike. By Monday evening, though, it all went to pot. Dang cold. BOTH sides of my nose running and the rest of me not so much; more fatigue than explainable, a tiny fever for a couple of mornings. Sooo congested.

So: Doing nothing with the dogs. Cancelled out of class (but then it got rained out anyway, yay, so I'm not out a week's class--except no more classes scheduled until the new year! Ack!), cancelled out of a work-related party, cancelled out of tomorrow's weekly walkies. Yesterday, DROVE the dogs to the schoolyard--to which I usually blithely walk .6 miles each way and then around its .25 circumference several times--threw the frisbee, Tika pooped, the trash can was on the far side of the field, and walking over there felt like about 20 miles.

I made a foray into the grocery store, with sanitary mask, because I was running out of everything useful. Not all that hungry, but a LITTLE hungry.

Ventured out again briefly today with my sanitary mask, but not a lot of walking, still tired but maybe not as much; sudafed helps a bit with the runny nose. But there are still symptoms; I'm not done yet. Went out and threw the ball for the dogs and did a little tug of war, 1st time in 3 days I think. But every time I bent over, nose started running! Dang! It's *me* that's supposed to be running!

Meanwhile, I've suspected that I probably missed ticks on the dogs from Sunday's hike; just right as I write this, noticed TWO on Boost's face near one eye, dangit, those will be hard to get off. And nose runs when I bend forward. And I'm tired. But--gotta do it. REALLY makes me think that there are others on them that I haven't found yet.

I've been frequently checking around their ears & haven't found any; that usually seems to be their favorite place. I was late on their FrontLine application this month--ran out--and so didn't apply until after the hike. Apparently that's a bad thing. (Or maybe it wouldn't help with the face anyway, and that's why they went there?)

So--off to detick, then more chx soup, then maybe to bed. Or, um, mindlessly doing things on the computer.

Boxing Day Hike

SUMMARY: A-hiking we will go, a-hiking we will go--

The morning after Christmas dawned cold and cloudy, frost on the grass, with rain predicted for the 2:00 hour. I decided to take the Merle Girls for a hike up Coyote Peak, which we haven't done since August, I think. However, as I'm recovering from a cold, we didn't start at the base and go up 1000 feet. Instead, we started on the hunchback between the two Santa Teresa County Park peaks at just under 600 feet. Coyote Peak is at 1150. We took some alternative trails so did some extra upping and downing, so still probably got in 700 or 800 foot cumulative gain over about 3 and a half miles.

On the way up, you can tell it's winter because the hillsides spring to green life after the rains begin.

Boost (and Tika, too) wanted to graze constantly. Really, I do feed them.


The skies looked like they might be thinking about possibly considering getting ready to rain, but nothing imminent.


Boost is such a mama's girl; didn't want to stay within the friend's control even long enough for me to snap a photo.


To the east, Mount Hamilton (at over 4,000 feet) and its observatory moved in and out of clouds and fog.


We made it! I'm not as tired as I thought I might be after three or four weeks with hardly any walking or hiking or agility (between Tika's sore toe and the holidays and all--), and of course the dogs are hardly even breathing heavily.


Compare to the same scene from August (read the post):


I could zoom in on downtown San Jose to our north, but it remained somewhat obscured by overcast and moisture-laden air. Fog hovers over the southern end of San Francisco Bay much to its north.


Someone who'd been here before us had played numerous games of tic-tac-toe in the soil atop the mountain.


I posed the Merle Girls for some nice, green-grass, mountain-backed photos.


Sharing the top of Coyote Peak:


And as we were getting ready to descend, the sun began breaking out from behind the clouds, and Mount Hamilton and Lick Observatory lit up brilliantly against the dark skies behind.


Arachnophobes, watch out for the next photo--as we descended towards the parking lot, my friend asked what was that on Tika's face? A tick, crawling along, looking for some good canine real estate. When we got back to the van, I spent about ten minutes plucking ticks off the dogs (mostly Tika, mostly her legs and face) and tossing them aside downwind--sorry, whoever comes into the parking lot next! Could've gone looking for rocks to crush them, but it was taking long enough to detick as it was.

When we got home, I filled a tiny Dixie cup with alcohol and began combing the dogs for ticks. Most came from Tika (her nice dense soft fur is apparently very attractive to ticks; Boost's sparser, harsher coat apparently doesn't attract or hold them as much). I never stopped finding them--pulled off about 40 over the next hour to hour and a half of constant looking. My back and arms finally just couldn't take it any more. I checked their heads and necks periodically for the rest of the evening, found one or two more each time, until finally the last time I looked I didn't see any *in that area* (which is the most attractive to them), so I called it quits and have kept my fingers crossed. The good thing is that they keep wandering around for hours and hours looking for location location location, so they're very easy to remove the first day, haven't even started trying to bite yet.

We did not have that tick problem back in August. But I was also more careful then about keeping the dogs out of the grass, and this time I not only didn't try, I actually encouraged them to lie there! Doh!