Terrible (for so many reasons)

I apparently am terrible at this blogging. I'm going to blame it on being homeless and going through the house building process and my grandpa dying and my mom having surgery. Am I excused? I think so. So to make up for it, I will do a confession of why I am a bad mom (to my dog) and why I'm a bit worried if I ever become a "real" mom.

My poor little Foxy is SO itchy. I don't know if she has an allergy to grasses or if there are little sand flies biting her or what. We are in Hayward taking care of my mom as she recuperates from her hip replacement, and so this is a bit of a new environment for Foxy. We walk daily on some great trails, and I religiously check her for ticks, but inevitably she will scratch and scratch all over basically from sun up til sun down.

I went to the feed mill a couple days ago to get a hot spot treatment thinking that would help. Well, she scratched so much in so many spots that I ended up using half the bottle in one night (and it didn't even help). So today I went back and got a calming shampoo and a neem dip. Now neem is this natural oil that is anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial and is supposed to keep bugs away and calm/heal the skin. I am talking to the girl in the store and she says, "You just dilute this with water and massage it into the coat and then just let her air dry." I said yep, ok, I can do that. So I bring her home and carry her into the bathtub - because she is terrified of the tub and basically lays down like dead weight so that I have to scoop her up and carry her into the bathroom. I wash with the shampoo and (this is slick cause this tub has a hand-held shower thing) rinse her off. Then I take the bottle of neem and proceed to squirt it all over her back, tummy, and legs and rub it in. Then I towel her off and bring her outside. Wow, she smells SO strong. I couldn't believe it. She is sneezing and flinging herself all over the yard, rolling violently.

I go back into the bathroom and tidy up and that's when it hits me. Oh crap. I didn't dilute it. I'm a terrible mom. No wonder she is sneezing like crazy. I get on the computer to see if there is some kind of neem toxicity, thinking I have inadvertently poisoned my dog, but find out that it is fine. There are no side effects. Sigh. She is sleeping as I type and I'm still feeling guilty....although, she is sleeping on my bed right next to my pillow so maybe this is payback as I will be smelling neem all night as I sleep.