DOG CARE: TICKS

Dog care can encompass many different things from supplying the right food to the actual health of your dog. There are several things that you have to be concerned with when you own a dog. For instance ticks are extremely pesky insects that will latch on to your dogs skin and cause several different issues from heart disease, blood disease, and heart-worms  You should know that all dogs can have problems related to ticks, which makes the proper care of your dog extremely important. We will look at what you can do to avoid ticks getting on to the skin of your dog and what you can do for proper grooming when you do spy a tick. There are also removal methods that you should learn about.

First ticks tend to survive in a few places including woods and moist areas. You will find that tick season is generally going to be in the warmer months of summer. When you live in the UK you will find that most dogs will only need to be treated for ticks in the summer months, where as if you are in the south portion of the United States you will find they have to be wary of ticks for at least six months out of the year because of the warm weather. Ticks generally leap from trees and bushes as a person or dog walks by crawling up the body. Ticks are usually found around the ears or neck of the dog. In some cases they may be found further along the body, but most often the neck is harder for the dog to kick the insect off and they can latch on. Ticks are very prolific creatures and left alone on the skin for too long can create babies that will hatch. A tick will latch on to the dogs skin by using its legs and then burying its head underneath the skin to suck the blood.

To prevent ticks from getting onto your dogs skin you should avoid certain areas, during the summer season. You should keep your dog out of tick areas such as the woods or moist areas like puddles and such that generally also have fleas. This is the best prevention method. You should keep to the streets, sidewalks, and open areas. There are also medications that can be used to prevent ticks from actually latching on. Instead it will kill them almost instantly. These medications are usually like the flea medications and are administered by a liquid to the back of the neck. In fact some of the medications are combined with flea medications. These medications need to be administered once a month during the height of tick and flea season to prevent health issues to your dog. These prevention methods and of course common sense is extremely important to keeping your dog healthy.

Now lets look at some of the methods for removing ticks. Ticks that have been able to latch on to your dogs skin can be difficult to get rid of. During your normal daily grooming you should always look through the hair with your hands to look for insects. With ticks you don’t just want to brush the dogs hair and hope for the best. You will find that using a brush can remove the body of the tick, but leave the head, which can be dangerous. This means that you really do need to look around the head and ears of the dog to make sure that you see the ticks before giving the coat a good brush. You can use a few methods for removal. If the head is not buried you can just remove the tick with tweezers. If the head has been buried you may need a little heat or certain types of oil or medication that will cause the flea to loosen the head and enable you to pull it out with tweezers.