It Is Tick Season....
This morning I had an OMG moment when my Golden - "Tag" walked in the house with a tick on his head. It was right next to his eye. So I thought I would take a look online to see what method was the best in removing it. I had heard all sorts of ways from suffocating the tick by placing liquid soap or nail polish on the ticks rear. My father liked to light a match to the ticks bottom and then there is the method of pulling it straight out.
I read that ticks are the leading carriers of diseases to humans in the us second to mosquitoes worldwide. Scary!
After doing a little research I found that a human can actually get Lyme or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to name a few diseases just by touching the tick. Nice!
I read that some of the suffocation methods of placing liquid soap, gasoline, petroleum jelly or nail polish on the ticks bottom may cause the tick to force infected fluid/germs into the host. Cinging the ticks bottom with a match may do the same thing. The most effective method I found was simply removing the tick with a pair of tweazers. You have to ensure you pull the head out with the tweazers. Pull slowly and straigh out. No twisting because you don't want to risk leaving a peice in the skin and causing a secondary infection. Plus the ticks barb is straight not spiraled. It may take some time to slowly pull the tick off if the tick has been attached for a while because they actually secrete a cement like substance to help them attach to the host once they bite. Once the tick has been removed you don't want to squeeze it because you could cause the tick to release nasty diseased germs.
You may want to keep the tick in a container for a month since it may take up to a month for symptoms of a disease to present itself. Even if you have been bitten by a tick - it may take a month or so for the tests to prove what disease you may have even if you are showing lots of symptoms. What I find as scary is that some ticks can be as small as the period in this sentence. Once they are full of blood from the host they will drop off and sometimes you will not even know you have been bitten.
I could not get my dog to keep from bobbing his head when I tried to remove this particular tick so I immediately called my vet. They removed the tick by a gentle, straight pull. They applied an anticeptic afterwards to the wound. My vet mentioned that a product called "Preventic" was the best product she has seen in a long time. She mentioned that she sees a lot of dogs who live in the backwoods and are just covered in ticks. She said that instead of pulling all of the ticks off of the dog she just puts one of these collars on them and lets the ticks fall off. The collar has to be replaced every 3 months and she said she just takes a sharpie marker and writes the replacement date on the collar so that she knows when to replace it. This product can only be used on dogs - not cats. Also - it is not good to put on an animal if your children will come in contact with it.
I think for the next couple of months it may be worth me keeping the kids and doggies separated. I really don't want to see another little critter on one of my dogs or in the house. :-)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/Q&A.htm#tick
http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/tick.asp
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/fleaside.html
http://www.preventic.com/
I read that ticks are the leading carriers of diseases to humans in the us second to mosquitoes worldwide. Scary!
After doing a little research I found that a human can actually get Lyme or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to name a few diseases just by touching the tick. Nice!
I read that some of the suffocation methods of placing liquid soap, gasoline, petroleum jelly or nail polish on the ticks bottom may cause the tick to force infected fluid/germs into the host. Cinging the ticks bottom with a match may do the same thing. The most effective method I found was simply removing the tick with a pair of tweazers. You have to ensure you pull the head out with the tweazers. Pull slowly and straigh out. No twisting because you don't want to risk leaving a peice in the skin and causing a secondary infection. Plus the ticks barb is straight not spiraled. It may take some time to slowly pull the tick off if the tick has been attached for a while because they actually secrete a cement like substance to help them attach to the host once they bite. Once the tick has been removed you don't want to squeeze it because you could cause the tick to release nasty diseased germs.
You may want to keep the tick in a container for a month since it may take up to a month for symptoms of a disease to present itself. Even if you have been bitten by a tick - it may take a month or so for the tests to prove what disease you may have even if you are showing lots of symptoms. What I find as scary is that some ticks can be as small as the period in this sentence. Once they are full of blood from the host they will drop off and sometimes you will not even know you have been bitten.
I could not get my dog to keep from bobbing his head when I tried to remove this particular tick so I immediately called my vet. They removed the tick by a gentle, straight pull. They applied an anticeptic afterwards to the wound. My vet mentioned that a product called "Preventic" was the best product she has seen in a long time. She mentioned that she sees a lot of dogs who live in the backwoods and are just covered in ticks. She said that instead of pulling all of the ticks off of the dog she just puts one of these collars on them and lets the ticks fall off. The collar has to be replaced every 3 months and she said she just takes a sharpie marker and writes the replacement date on the collar so that she knows when to replace it. This product can only be used on dogs - not cats. Also - it is not good to put on an animal if your children will come in contact with it.
I think for the next couple of months it may be worth me keeping the kids and doggies separated. I really don't want to see another little critter on one of my dogs or in the house. :-)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/Q&A.htm#tick
http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/tick.asp
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/fleaside.html
http://www.preventic.com/
posted by Christine at
2:13 PM
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