10 Effective Ways To Keep Ticks Off Your Dog
Spring is in the air. I bet you can’t wait to get your dog outside for a nice walk or some much needed play time at the park. Unfortunately, disease carrying ticks are everywhere!
Learning the most effective ways to keep ticks off your dog is vital to help your pup stay safe from a toxic bite.
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Table of Contents
What Is A Tick?
Ticks are small arachnids (spiders), not insects. Adult ticks have eight legs, a round-shaped body, and are usually 3 to 5 mm in length. They can be black, brown, or tan in color.
They live off the blood of animals, people, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. When a tick feeds off of an animal or human, it can pass on a number of diseases – yuck!
Where Do Ticks Hide?
Ticks are usually found in forests, meadows, gardens and parks. Dogs can pick up ticks while walking through tall grass or crawling through shrubs.
Ticks can survive the cold winter months by living underground. When it gets warmer outside, they immediately begin looking for hosts to feed on.
How Does A Tick Bite?
Ticks search for soft, warm areas of the skin with little to no hair to latch on. It then secretes a numbing chemical, so that the host doesn’t feel their mouth-parts cut through their skin.
Then, the tick inserts a feeding tube and feeds on blood until it is full. Their mouth-parts are barbed so that your dog can’t scratch to get rid of the tick. When the tick is full, it will fall off on its own.
Not all ticks transmit disease, but all tick bites should be taken seriously. It may take several hours to transmit a tick-borne disease to a host. The sooner a tick is located and removed, the lower the risk of a transmitted disease. 1
Facts About Ticks
- A tick can swell up to 10 times its normal size from the blood it consumes.
- A female tick can lay between three to seven thousand eggs in one sitting.
- There are 200 known tick species located in the USA.
- A tick’s saliva contains so much bacteria that they are among the most potent disease carriers in the world.
- Adult Ticks have the ability to survive without a host for up to a year and a half.
How To Keep Ticks Off Your Dog
The Companion Animal Parasite Council says the most important thing to do to prevent ticks is to use a combination flea and tick control agent All YEAR Round.
How To Check Your Dog for Ticks
Finding ticks on your dog is not always easy, especially if their coat is long and thick. After returning from a walk or hike, remove your dog’s collar and run a Flea and Tick removing comb through your dog’s fur. Then, manually check the following areas on your dog:
Where Do Ticks Hide On Dogs?
- Inside and Outside Ears
- Between the Toes
- Face and Chin
- Under the Tail
- Groin area
- Armpits
- Eyelids
Check for bumps between the size of a pin-head all the way up to the size of a small grape. Shine a light on your dog’s fur to see if that bump is just a skin tag or a tick by looking for little black legs or red irritation between the bump and the dog’s skin.
Depending on how long they have been feeding, the tick may or may not be very big. I usually find ticks around my dog’s ears or face.
Always check all over, one tick can multiply fast!
Female long-horned ticks can spawn asexually and lay thousands of eggs without a mate. These ticks are native to Asia, but now have spread to the United States. 4
How To Remove Ticks From Dogs
1. You Will Need:
- Rubber Gloves
- Clean Tweezers or Tick Remover Tool
- Peroxide
- Isopropyl Alcohol
2. Wear Gloves:
When removing the tick from your dog, you should wear gloves to prevent the spread of Lyme Disease.
3. Using Tweezers:
- Use fine-point tweezers to avoid tearing the tick and spreading infections into the wound.
- Grasp the tick body as close to your dog’s skin as possible (try not to pinch their skin).
- Firmly pull the tick straight out without crushing or squeezing it – this would release more toxins into your dog’s bloodstream.
4. Kill The Tick:
Put the tick in Isopropyl Alcohol to kill it.
I usually put some alcohol in a small plastic bag to finish the job. If you would like to hang onto the tick to be tested by your vet, use a glass jar.
Continue to check on the tick bite area over the next few days for infection. Call your veterinarian if you notice any issues.
If you find more than one tick on your pup, ask your vet for a dog flea and tick shampoo recommendation.
5. Cleanup and Disinfection:
Always wash your hands and your dog’s wound with soap and water. Then, gently wipe their wound with some peroxide on a cotton ball.
Peroxide is recommended for tick bites because the oxygen it contains destroys the Lyme Disease bacteria.
Lastly, apply an antibiotic ointment to the wound and disinfect your tweezers or tick removal tool with isopropyl alcohol.
Best Tick Removers
The Tick Key and the Tick Twister are my absolute favorite tick removers – ever!
1. The Tick Key
With the Tick Key (from Amazon), you simply put the tick’s body through the largest part of the opening in the key, slide it down so the smallest part of the opening is around the tick, and give it a pull.
The Tick Key removes body and head easily. Tick Key video on YouTube.
2. Tick Twister
With the Tick Twister (from Amazon), you put the prongs on either side of the tick and twist upward. It removes the tick without squeezing it, reducing the risk of infection, and doesn’t leave the tick’s head behind.
The Tick Twister removes ticks in a few seconds without pain. See the Tick Twister YouTube Video.
Natural Tick Removal
Soap Soaked Cotton Ball:
The Soap Soaked Cotton Ball method can be used for dogs or humans. It is a helpful solution for removing ticks that are in those hard to reach spots when tweezers and remover tools just won’t work.
First, apply some liquid dish soap (Dawn Dish Soap preferred) to a cotton ball. Then, cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and move it around in circles for about 40 seconds.
The tick should back out on it’s own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. If your dog has extra sensitive or dry skin, try using dog shampoo instead.
Wet Q-tip Method:
Wet a Q-Tip with a couple drops of clove essential oil and rub it in a circular pattern around the tick. This motion will agitating the little critter until it backs out.
How Do You Kill Ticks?
Drop that nasty tick into isopropyl alcohol to kill it! Flushing the tick down the toilet won’t kill it. Do not squish the tick between your fingers. The tick-borne diseases can be transmitted to you if you touch it!
Directions:
Put the tick in a glass jar or plastic zip lock baggie. Then, add a teaspoon of rubbing alcohol. The alcohol will kill the tick.
Next, write down the date you found the tick. Keep an eye on the bite area to see if an infection surfaces. Save the container for a few weeks. If your dog shows any symptoms of illness, take the tick to your vet for an examination.
What If the Tick’s Head Gets Stuck in Your Dog’s Skin?
If a tick’s head gets stuck in your pup’s skin, do not try to dig out. You could make the wound much worse than it already is. Generally, your dog’s body will get rid of it naturally, but if it doesn’t, you can contact your vet for help.
Even if you try your best to be careful when removing a tick from your dog’s skin, it is common for the tick’s head to get left behind when a tick is removed, especially with tweezers.
Continue to keep the area clean and inspect it periodically for any inflammation or infection.
What Diseases Can Your Dog Get From A Tick?
Unfortunately, One tick is enough to transmit a life-threatening disease to you or your dog. The following diseases can affect humans and dogs.
10 Diseases Ticks Can Transmit:
Tick Paralysis:
A tick’s saliva contains several toxins that can be released into your dog’s bloodstream. Some of these toxins can cause your dog to become lame or paralyzed.
This is called Tick Paralysis.
Unsuspecting dog owners may think that their dog’s paralysis is permanent and may decide to euthanize their dog! You and your vet should always check for ticks before such drastic decisions are made. Usually after the tick has been removed, the paralysis condition wares off. 1
Symptoms of a Tick Bite
It may take days or weeks before your dog exhibits any symptoms of a tick bite.
A good rule of thumb is to make a ‘future appointment’ with your vet after you pull a tick out of your dog’s skin. They can do a blood test to check for Lyme Disease.
Contact your vet if your dog has any of these tick bite symptoms.
- Redness
- Itching
- Inflammation
- Swelling
- Weakness
- Loss of appetite
- Lethargy
- Fever
- Vomiting
- Pain
- Paralysis
Thanks for your article! Do you know if Lyme Disease can be transmitted by just coming in contact with a tick, but not getting bitten?
Hello, You’re welcome! Per the cedars-siani.org website: it is recommended that a person shouldn’t touch a tick with your bare hands.
Here is some great information about ticks from the cdc website