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Thursday evening I was giving Thomas..our 2 year old Goldendoodle a bit of a massage around his neck and shoulders as we were sitting on the couch together.  Suddenly I felt this bump on his shoulder back area about 4 inches below his collar.  I investigated of course and pulled the hair away and saw a black bump on his skin.  My husband looked at it and said it was a wart...no no I told him...two year old dogs don't have those yet.  By Friday this thing had gotten larger..my son and I took a good look and we decided it could possibly be a tick.  Called the vet and drove him over right away...and yes...to my astonishment...my city dog had a tick!  They removed the ugly culprit and now he is on antibiotics...just in case it passed on any infection.  I am all over this dog of ours every night...brushing, cleaning ears and massaging him. So I know he did not have this thing earlier that week...we discovered it Thursday...had it removed Friday evening.  When the heck did he pig this disgusting thing up?? or more importantly...where?  Do these things live in our backyards?We live in Toronto and it is getting cold..I am just glad I found it quickly as this ugly thing was FEEDING OFF MY DOG!!!  YECHHH

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I hate it....we live in the country, so it is more common here, but I can just tell by the feel of it, if it is a gross tick. I think ticks are just about everywhere, so it can happen. He could have picked it up on a walk, park, your yard and I am no expert, but it does not take them long to get engorged. We use Frontline on both our dogs. Good luck!
I knew it was more common in the country but I never expected it in the city. The thing got so big...so fast...about the size of a large pea...never seen this before in any of the dogs I have known. My sister just called and told me her dog had one last year...so I guess I am just uneducated in this. Thanks though...Thomas never even knew he had this gross thing on him!!
I hate when they get that big....double yuck. I don't know if you have a REI store, but they have a great tick remover, if it ever happens again. We always flush them too, because they are hard to kill.
They really can be just about anywhere and who knows if someone didn't carry it in from somewhere else, so it's really hard to say where on can find them. I use Frontline Plus as well. We just had a scare with 2 fleas on the puppy a week after she came to us and my vet was pleasantly surprised that I had our first dog on Frontline already, minimizing his exposure.
She said even tho fleas are rare here in Arizona, it can happen. I was as freaked about 2 fleas as you are about the tick, so I was very glad I have been investing in Frontline for the past 2 years and will continue to do so. As for the fleas, we seemed to have caught it right away and never saw another, and ofcourse both dogs now get frontline!!!
Yeah, one of the dogs I pulled for IDOG was COVERED in ticks. I got a tick puller from PetCo. and spent hours and hours removing them from everywhere. They were even in the webs for the poor doods feet. Of course, this was after the dog had spent a week on the run, out in pasture lands. The worst part about it was the his fur was black, so it was harder to find them.
Oh yeah...dark hair would be almost impossible to see these gross creatures...my dog is a ginger blond...so this black blistery thing really stood out. What possible meaning could these yechky things have on this earth?
I have found ticks attached to my dogs but I have never given them antibiotics. True, they have had the Lyme vaccine and tomorrow go for this years vaccination for it. But the deer are all over, probably in big parks even in the city and the mice for sure so ticks are now all over. I also use Frontline year round and still get sticks attached to the dogs, although rarely and they do seem to die before they get huge. I started a recent discussion on better prevention and got some suggestions if you're interested.
http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/tick-picking
I just read the discussion u mentioned. I have heard ...mostly on this forum some terrible things about Frontline. thomas was on Revolution and I don't think it has any prevention for ticks...mainly heartworm. I am interested to hear about this "lyme" vaccine you mentioned. I thought I had Thomas on every vaccine available but I have never heard of this one. Perhaps it is because we are in an area that had no incidence of this? Also...the climate here is getting cold...it is averaging about 6 degrees C...or 42 degrees F. Shouldn't these pests be dead by now? Re the antibiotics...I hate to give them to him...but the vet suggested it as a precaution. we could have said no...but what could we do? I really don't think it was necessary but I would always wonder if we chose not to go ahead with them. So far so good...the big doodle has eaten them up with a nice hunk of cheese...but I was so worried about a reaction...both my kids are allergic to penicillin.
We don't live in an area where there are ticks but we took Gracie Doodle up to San Jose with us last Christmas to our daughters. We took the dogs into the Santa Cruz Mountains for a run and about 4 days after we got home we found 3 ticks on her. We have never experienced ticks and were grossed out. Especially since Gracie sleeps with us and sometimes sleeps up high with her head on my pillow snuggled with me!!! Ewwww We Googled and learned how to remove them. I took her to the Vet the next week and he checked her out and I had the option of having a blood test done but you have to wait a month after the tick bite to get a true reading. That way they can check the titers for the various tick born diseases. There are something like 4 or 5. If the blood test showed that the disease was present (but dormant) then we were going to do the antibiotics. He said that it can take up to 5 years for the disease to present itself and then one day you wonder why your dog is sick. This is also true in humans as well. And, how many of us can remember back and say "oh, I was bit by a tick 5 years ago?" Gracie's blood test showed negative so no problem. But, better safe than sorry...and the next time she gets bit...which I hope is never...we will do the blood test again. We are driving back up to San Jose for Thanksgiving so this time I am using the K9 Advantix along with her regular monthly Comfortis (fleas) and Sentinel (heartworm). I use to use Frontline Plus but forgot it last year when she got the ticks. After reading the posts, I am now going with the Advantix!!
We do not live in an area that has ticks either...so I am perplexed about where this gross thing came from. Our vet said he could send the tick away for testing....he had it in a dish to show us this gross thing after he removed it!! But that test takes a long time to get the results plus it was very expensive. OR he said...we can just put him on the antibiotics right away...he said if he sent this thing away for testing and it came back postive that it was carrying some disease our doodle would have to go on antibiotics anyway. So we decided to go with the preventative measure of giving him the drugs now just to make sure.
I had the dogs at the vet's office Monday. they are still recommending Frontline. The reason that even though the ticks still can attach they die shortly thereafter and supposedly, the y say this with people too, the ticks have to be attached for about 24 hours before they can cause infections.
Revolution is supposed to protect against ticks. I found one earlier this year on my younger dog - in April (too early to have started his Revolution)!! We live in Muskoka though and have deer in our yard all the time. I had to remove it with tweasers and was totally grossed out!!

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