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Ticks can cause serious health problems for dogs, as well as humans. When it comes to transmitting contagious diseases, they rank second to mosquitoes. To identify if your pet is infested by ticks, following are the signs and symptoms to lookout for: discomfort, tenderness, local infection, sensitivity, fever, lameness, loss of appetite, sudden pain in legs or body, arthritis, malaise or lethargy, cough, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis.                                                                                                        

Since ticks are hard to detect if the dog’s fur is long, most pet owners would maintain their pet’s hair short for easy tick detection. Wear gloves whenever searching for ticks. Rub your hands against the dog’s fur and feel for bumps. Visually check if it is a tick.

Common Practice For Removing Ticks

When removing ticks, you either spray alcohol or pour one to two drops of mineral oil bluntly to the tick. It will immoblize the tick in an instant. It also helps release its hold onto the dog’s skin. Locate the head of the tick, and grip the head as close to its mouth as possible. Apply gently pressure. Deliberately, remove the tick away from your pet’s skin. Do not grapple it at its body and avoid yanking or twisting the tick, or else its head might be separated from its body, leaving its pinchers behind. Never crush the tick. Crushing the tick can spread more microorganisms, or worse, it can cause the blood of the tick to don the dog’s wound. If the head or any part of it remains in the dog’s skin, remove them cautiously. Although the immune system of the dog can generally banish these remainders, an infection or abscess might occur, so it is best to contact your veterinarian if uncertain.

After removing the tick, drop the parasite to a mineral oil or alcohol, ensure that it is dead before disposing it to a nearby garbage bin. To prevent transfer of infection, wipe the mineral oil in the dog’s fur and then decontaminate the area with alcohol.

Tools For Removing Ticks

Never takeout the tick directly with your bare hands. If you use your bare handss, you can transfer the germ from the tick to your hands. Although removing dog’s tick might not be as easy as you think, there are supplementary ways to easily remove ticks by using different tools such as curved hemostats, tick spoon, tick slider, tick nipper, tick noose, and tick forceps. Curved thermostats are generally used by physicians or veterinarians. Tick spoon on the other hand, is an impressively well-crafted little plastic spoon with a notch at the end. Tick spoon is used by sliding the notch under the tick before levering it off. The tick slider is very similar to the tick spoon. Ingenuously, slide the instrument under the tick before lifting it off. Tick nipper is a little plastic instrument with a curved jaw, which enables you to grasp the tick by its head prior to lifting it off. Tick forceps is just like an instrument used by ophthalmologists. It can easily grapple the head of the tick because of its fine tipped end. By no means use sharp material when removing ticks as not to poke holes in your pet’s skin.

Though ticks are highly treatable, it is important that pet owners know how to prevent ticks. Regular bathing and other preventive tick medications are still the most excellent ways in keeping the ticks off your pet.

Control ticks with|Manage fleas with Frontline for dogs. Frontline for Dogs treats all types of fleas and ticks and kills them fast.

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