Madness and mites and mange, oh my!

We love our Cub. She’s a little white puppy with puffy fur and her ears fold over so she looks like a polar bear cub (hence the name). Her appearance at our doorstep is totally MY fault (not Rob’s, not Sandra’s…) because I could not stand to see another frozen dead puppy by the roadside. So one day a month ago Rob noticed the puppy, told Sandra to take it to my house and I took her in.
Bryan and I decided to foster the cub until we could find a home for her. Every time we got too enamoured of her we would remind ourselves what one of her parents looks like (enormously tall white dog). She was so adorable we knew we could find a home for her very quickly.
Until the mange.
I thought mange was eradicated, like smallpox. I remember reading about it in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and hearing about how sheep used to get dipped for mange. Well, our adorable white puppy has it. And now, so do we.
As I understand it (so parts of this may not be entirely correct) all dogs have common mites who do good works of sloughing off dead skin and never cause any problems. These mites are only visible at the microscopic level. However, both Cub and Kaylee have had problems with mites. For Kaylee it was only an allergic reaction. For poor Cub, it was much worse. She was incredibly malnourished before coming to us and thus her immune system was shot. So the mites multiplied and before we knew it her hair was falling off and her entire body was getting scabbed over.
A trip to the vet revealed she had the lesser form of mange and she got a shot for it. We’ll have to take her back in two weeks for another shot. Until then she has to let her lesions and scabs heal (which is difficult because she is always itching).
Bryan and I have to put up with itching, too. We aren’t nearly as affected as the dog, and Bryan is even less infected than I, but we both scratch and complain.
Don’t worry, family. We should be all healed up before our fabulous Easter vacation in St. Wahlburg.