Removing Ticks
When we were in Mexico, we lived in the jungle along the coast. Our house had no screens on the windows, and we didn’t even have all four walls on our house. The dogs could come and go as they pleased, and they delighted in disappearing into the bush now and again to chase chickens.
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of ticks in the jungle, just like a lot of other places on Earth. If you live, or go adventuring, in an area that has ticks, you’re probably going to have to remove one from your dog sooner or later.
If your dog has been wandering around outdoors in tick country, it’s a good idea to check your dog for ticks everyday. You can do this by rubbing your fingers through their hair and along their skin. You want to feel their skin for any little lumps or bumps. Sometimes this is just dirt or a scratch, but other times it’s a tick. You’ll need to part the hair and get a good look.
Ticks tend to be brown in color, and are fairly small, with little legs sticking out from their sides. They are very flat before feeding, and quite swollen and fat after sucking blood. They excrete a substance from their mouth parts that acts like a glue to hold them tight to the skin, so they can be difficult to remove. Making it worse, they can bury their mouth parts under the skin and removal of the tick sometimes leaves these bits behind, leaving the body prone to infection.
When you are removing a tick, it is wisest to use a pair of tweezers if at all possible. If you squeeze the tick when it’s full of blood, it will just explode, leaving all kinds of bits behind under your dog’s skin. Gross but true. You need to gently grab the tick with the tweezers and PULL.
Now when I was in Mexico, I didn’t have any tweezers, and I removed any ticks we encountered with my fingers. However, it’s important to realize that ticks carry all kinds of diseases, some of which can be transferred to humans. Using tweezers really is the safest technique.
After you’ve removed the tick, don’t just dispose of it outdoors. Ticks can survive for months and months without feeding, and I’ve been told you can’t crush them to death even with a hammer! Now I’m not sure if that’s true, but your best course of action is to flush the tick down the toilet. That way, you can be sure the pest will never again attach itself to your dog’s skin.
If you live or adventure in places that are heavily populated by ticks, you might want to consider getting your dogs vaccinations against common tick diseases if available, and use a product like Revolution to repel ticks.
