Seriously GROSSED OUT!!!!

[Katie, John & Parker pup]

Just removed my first ever (they don't have them where I'm from) engorged tick off of Parker's face! I was just giving him a face massage when I felt a bump (i also felt it a couple mornings ago but it was smaller and in a sleepy haze I forgot to check it later in the day. So when I felt it tonight, it felt much bigger...and when I parted his fur to see what it was (thinking it was a growth or something) and I saw a dark grey bulb on his skin I freaked out! I have never seen a tick like that and didn't know what it was until I google imaged it....ugh I just want to pesticide my whole apartment now!

Should I call the vet about the tick though??? I plucked him out of Parker's skin and he has a little scab there but I do use the frontline (which I thought would have killed the blood sucker before it got engorged like that!) and he's had his lymes disease vaccination I believe. This is what I saw!!!! Sooooo have the heebie jeebies right now!!

[Ginny Nightingale]

I switched to Advantix--Frontline has been useless up here in tick country--I live in the #1 county for Lyme disease too, so we don't mess around. 

That is not a deer tick--it is a common dog tick that does not carry Lyme. No big deal--way before Advantix or Frontline came along, my dogs had ticks like this all the time. A deer tick is very tiny and even when engorged, it looks like the period at the end of a sentence. Really. I had 13 of them on my leg once after walking through a field in sandals--none had bitten me yet--

[F, Calla & Luca]

Does the Advantix really work well?

[Ginny Nightingale]

I have not had a tick or a flea on my dogs in two years --and there are ticks everywhere here...That's all I can say about it.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Yes.  I switched from Frontline plus to Advantix.  Problem solved.

[F, Calla & Luca]

BTW, although they are small engorged adult deer ticks are significantly bigger that a period. I'm estimating from this Wikipedia article, and then doing a centimeter to inch conversion that they are about 1/5 of an inch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixodes_scapularis

[Lynda Kamrath]

But you are pretty brave to put him on your hand and take a photo.  We have tons of ticks around here and start the dogs on Frontline as soon as the first rain.  Now the ticks start hatching out.  I have found up to 50 picks on Hondo after a walk in the oak forest.  We get them on us all the time also as we don't take Frontline, but we can feel them crawling on us and get them right away.  The poor dogs don't seem to notice that they have ticks so we always need to check them even though they take Frontline.  The ticks fall off as soon as they bite the dogs, but if it is in the house, then they could get on us.  Nasty, isn't it?

[Katie, John & Parker pup]

Oh trust me! That is NOT my hand! This is a photo I found on google images that looks like the one I found on Parker. He has so much fur...how can it be possible to find ticks when they are tiny!? I need a wind tunnel for him to walk through before he enters the house! lol

[shelly]

OH, GROSS!   Probably NOT the best thing to read about before going to sleep!  TICKS freak me out.  I just caved and had the vet put Frontline Plus on Tori last month when we found fleas on her.  It's time to do it again, and I am leery again.... don't like to put chemicals on her skin, but the alternative seems much worse.  WHY?! Are these little buggers SO BAD this year?!  Good luck! (I'm so freaky about ticks that I keep poor Tori in and off of the grass because of it.)