Rodney

This _can_ work, but only if your dog cooperates: put the dog's food bowl inside a larger bowl, and fill the larger dish partly with water or some other liquid. The ants can't cross the water, and eventually they'll give up. Of course, if your dog drinks the liquid, you're SOL.

Other than that, find the cracks in the wall or floor where they're coming in, and caulk them. If they find new places, caulk those too. Eventually you'll get ahead.

Finally, do you have a garbage can outside that the ants feed off? If so, that can may be the major draw that gets the ants to come to your house. We had that situation: we kept getting ants in the house and kept fighting them in the house, when all the time they wouldn't have bothered to _go_ into the house if the outside garbage can hadn't already lured them into the neighborhood. What happened was that we got a new can that sealed tight so that the ants couldn't get to the garbage, and the ant problem outside _and_ inside our house disappeared. If this fits your situation, try it.

Finally, spreading boric acid around kills ants, just like roaches. But if pets can get into the area where you've spread the boric acid, don't use it; they'll get it on their paws and coats, lick it off, and eventually poison themselves.

Final thought: feed your dog at controlled times of the day. Don't leave food out. When he's finished and walks away, pick up the bowl and put it in the fridge. Don't bring it out until next mealtime.

Oh yeah, if you just want to kill a lot of ants in a big hurry -- like, there's in invasion in your house -- spray them with Windex or some other window cleaner. Takes two spritzes at most. Then you can wipe 'em up with a paper towel and leave your floor sparkly clean at the same time. Citrus-based cleaners may work also, not sure.

Yes, I have dealt with ants _a lot._