doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ticks on a dog

Just got back from a non hunting weekend. (27 th anniv., have to placate them a little!!!
Greeting my Springer and felt some bumps around her ears and back of head. never noticed them before I went away. We were hunting Saturday. Well, she has a bunch of ticks imbedded. I know about using a match or cigarette, or nail polish. what else can I do short of a trip to the vet? Will they gorge until they drop off? I havent had this issue in 20 years so dont really remember how I dealt with it before. Any advice would help.

If the the bumps are ticks, you can use a disposable lighter; flick on the flame till the metal is really hot, then put the hot metal against the tick, it should back out.

Yeti has good advice but you can do the same thing if you heat the head of a straight pin- red hot and touch the tick on it's butt. This should cause it to back out of your dog. You can also try to cover the ticks with alcohol using a Q-Tip. This should also get them to back out. You want to try to avoid breaking the head off of the tick as this can cause it's head to cause infection. If you try to pull it off with tweezers, this will probably happen so be careful about doing that. There are also sprays to get that will make them release, that you should be able to get at the grocery store. Good luck.

Get a cotton swab and douse the tick with Campho-phenique. It will retract and drop off. This is not an instant remedy, but it does work. If you force pulling the tick loose it will leave its sucker embedded and that makes for a much longer healing time and a lot of aggravation with it itching and possibly festering. I would let a Vet handle it before I made a mistake trying to use anything hot or with a flame, but that's just me. I doubt the Vet would charge you much and you can pick his brain about ticks, probably for more $ worth of knowledge about them than he is going to charge you for removing them. There are many kinds of ticks and they all dislike camphor. I have also used Hydrogen peroxide to cause a tick to retract and too the head of a straight pin heated with a match or lighter, but the later only on myself as dogs don't generally hold still long enough for that. Rubbing a bit of Chigger-X on the wound afterwards will take most of the itch out. Walmart sells Chigger-X for a coupla bucks and a can will last about two lifetimes. Its a small plastc can and easy to pack and have in your kit or glovebox for insect bites and such anyway. When younger I found that a few drops of Turpintine applied to a tick with an eye dropper is about as effective as anything to make them retract, but that is based on empirical doings only. I never tried it on a dog, but I can't see where the tick would be able to tell the difference.

Brian,

A friend of mine trains English Springers professionally. I have spent years working with him two or three times a week. There are a couple dozen dogs in the kennel at any given time and unfortunatly here in NJ we have more ticks than we know what to do with. We keep Frontline Top Spot on all of the dogs Year round but ticks can still get on the dogs. When they do we simply pull the tick off. We would need to live at the vet if we went there every time a dog got a tick. I have not ever seen any serious infection from leaving part of the tick behind. That is not to say that you will not have a small skin sore that it would be wise to keep an eye on. A topical antibiotic should prevent any serious skin problem. Pull the tick low and close to the skin , use tweezers if it helps. You may want to comb thru the dogs coat with a tick comb to try and get any remaining ticks off before they latch on. A tough job on a Springer. I personally recomend that you vaccinate agains lyme and use tick repellents in the future. Use the tick comb after each hunt will prevent bites before they occur.

Bill G.

Brian,
I have six GSP and eventhough I use Frontline Plus they still occasionally get a tick or two. We keep a bottle of flea and tick shampoo here and dab that on the tick and it will usually come right off. If not it will be dead in a few hours. I have a couple of light colored dogs that are sensitive to just pulling the tick off.

100% of what Bill G said. My vet recently started recommending Revolution, which prevents heart worm, plus flea, tick, mite and mange. Get the dog vaccinated for Lyme disease.

Check out http://www.lcsupply.com/index.php?page=products&persist=yes&pageNr=2

They have a couple of products for removing ticks.

Make sure you get the sucker and kill it. I prefer to burn them. A tick can live for up to 20 years. They are active all year long.

Pete

Once a tick bites he can't let go and back out because you touched him with a hot poker or put some concoction on him.

A tick can't release his bite untill he has fed.

If you or your dog gets bit by a tick...jusy pull it off.
Kill it or if you want save it for testing in case you later get sick.
L.F.

Brian,
Bill G's word on applying the triple antibiotic to the tick spot is good advice.

Brian,
A bit of further information : don't trust your dogs protection from the Lyme vaccine as well(it is far from 100% effective). My lab was vaccinated as soon as was allowed, we used Frontline as soon as allowed, and she still caught Lyme's and all the requisite problems that go with it. You really have to keep after those little critters.
Rick