Ick! A Tick!

[Leslie and Halas]

Luckily, it was crawling on the floor, not on Halas.  I assume it came off of him, so does the fact that it didn't attach to him mean that his Frontline Plus is working?  Or is that supposed to keep ticks away from him entirely?  We went for a walk in the big field behind our house, and he did a lot of rolling around in the grass, and a lot of walking right along the edge of the field by the woods, so he must have picked it up there.  The tick faced death-by-flushing.

I've really checked Halas over, but it would be easy for a tick to hide in all of that fluff.  Are there specific parts of the body where they tend to attach?

I was sitting and laying by Halas for a while earlier this evening (before I saw this tick on the floor), so now I have the willies thinking I might have a tick on me.  I suppose the one I found could have come in on me instead of Halas, but I wasn't the one rolling in the grass.

Ick! Ick! Ick!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Leslie, I think with Frontline, they must bite the dog before they die. I am sure it came in on Halas. This happens all the time with Fudge and Vern. It has been a bad season here for ticks. I tend to find the ticks in their head area or crawling on them and I always flush them, too. I always feel like I have ticks on me when this happens and spend the rest of the night checking my hair. Gross!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

I have only seen one lately but my doodles tend to get them crawling near their heads. But they can be anywhere and Laurie is right. Frontline doesn't repel them but hopefully kills them. I certainly have had attached, engorged, and hopefully dead, ticks on the dogs.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Fortunately I have never seen a tick in the flesh. (Pun maybe intended.) But Frontline doesn't repel them or prevent them from attaching, it just kills them once they do attach, before they can do any damage. My guess is that it hitched a ride on Halas but didn't have time to get down through all that fur and was shaken or knocked off. I agree that since you didn't do any rolling in the grass, it's a pretty safe bet that Halas was the tick limo.

From what I hear, they can attach anywhere and everywhere. JD's vet tech told me they've had dogs come in with ticks in very strange places lately, one dog had a tick burrowed into his cheek! It's supposed to be a particularly bad year for them.

[Bonnie and Kona]

You are one lucky lady to have missed the experience of removing an engorged tick from your dogs. EWWW! 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Honestly, Bonnie, I've never even seen a tick in real life, so I'm really lucky!

[Camilla and Darwin]

I haven't either, and I'm really glad. (shudder)

[Diana Erhart]

I agree with your ick! ick! ick!  Several weeks back I found a totally engorged one on my family room floor.  I had just given Charlie his flea and tick treatment a day before (and yes, I was a few days late in giving it, that isn't going to happen again!)  But I have this phobia about flushing things down the toilet....I can picture all those horrible bugs and things coming back up one day and attacking me!!  So I wrapped it in a bunch of paper towels and old newspapers and beat the **it out of it with the back of a frying pan.  Although it totally obliterated the tick it still didn't cure me of the willies.

[Bonnie and Kona]

Now that is a nightmare! Bugs crawling out of the toilet is way worse than removing an engorged tick from a doodle. Ewwwww.

[Lee Seidman]

I heard that there was an extremely effective Tick Collar for our Doodles. Does anyone have info on this product?  We use Comfortis for flea prevention and I have never seen a flea on them but Ticks gross me out.

[John and Finn]

I found 4 latched onto Finn after a camping trip.  It was not easy removing (puppys squirm so much) and killing those things.  I swtiched to advantix II which also repels and kills ticks. 

[Lynn D.]

The second dog I rescued for iDOG had spent a long time on his own, poor guy. By the time I got him he was full of ticks but no fleas. So when he had enough patience to sit or down for a while I would work on him. I cant remember how many I pulled off of him but it looked like he felt so much better after every session. Great dog! I wish I could have kept him.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

We still find ticks before they have buried into the dogs.  We do tick checks during this time of year.  TN is so bad and we live on an acre - it's just inevitable they are bringing them in. Everyone is right - Frontline does not REPEL, it kills them, in our case, before the ticks become engorged. But then again we do tick checks and usually get them off before...