Gun Dog Forum

So the tics are out and they are bad!! I'm curious, how often do you check your dogs for tics, and what is the best way to check for them? Is there a certain part of the body that they like to hide? What is the best way to remove them from your dog? And one last questions, what kind of harm can they do to your dog? The reason I ask is cause our dog was snuggling my wife and he was just feeling around and felt two, so now we're a little concerned and want to make sure we get it all. Is there a medicine that we can give him to make him ammune? Thank you!!

My dogs are on Advantix. Ticks are killed immediately and fall off, so I don't check my dogs. My husband likes to check me out for fleas or a least that's what he tells me.

Frontline has always worked well for us. Heard good things about advantix though. Any tic's we have found hooked on were usually up around the head & neck. Under & inside ears. I used to live in tic area & lately tic's are showing up here where we live. I hate tic's ! Since Oct. I have taken 3 they were hooked out of myself & one out of Max. if they keep up I may put frontline on myself ! I am not a fan of putting chemicals on max so I usually wait until they show up. I know it may not be the best idea but it has worked so far.

I'll have to look into those chemicals to protect him from them. Is there a certain way to pull them off? I don't know if I did it right yesterday, I used pliars and yanked them out, but I don't know if this is the right way to do it?

Sharon wrote:My dogs are on Advantix. Ticks are killed immediately and fall off, so I don't check my dogs. My husband likes to check me out for fleas or a least that's what he tells me.

We use K9 Advantix II as well, but we still check them for ticks. It takes a little time for the chemicals to kill them; it's by no means "immediate" or "instantaneous".

trasmuson3 wrote:I'll have to look into those chemicals to protect him from them. Is there a certain way to pull them off? I don't know if I did it right yesterday, I used pliars and yanked them out, but I don't know if this is the right way to do it?

You shouldn't squeeze the tick to remove it. I think a quality tick puller is worth the money to be honest.

I use to use Frontline but have since switched, http://sidexsidesetters.com/blog/?p=675 but since your dog is indoors I'd stick with Frontline or Advantix. Having a tick remover on hand is a must and the Tick Key has by far been my favorite of them all. Even with the best protection you'll still find the occasional tick on your dog, get it off asap and make sure the head came out as well. I give the bite a splash of rubbing alcohol immediately afterwards. If you wanted to be proactive, aggressively so, get him on a 10 day bout of doxycycline if you can get a script from your vet. In short, if they won't give you a script without seeing the dog do two things, don't bother with the meds and find yourself a new vet as they're looking to whack you with the their general fee for the visit, probably a snap test, titer test, and a Lymes vaccine. All of which are no where near as cost effective and affective as doxy pills that average $0.20 a piece.

What tick removal tool does everyone recommend?

The Tick Key is considered the best one. I have a tweezer type, it is ok.

The Tick Key is $5.

I use my fingers or if it's small, a pair of tweezers.
We have a lot of ticks here, year round... I've had Rocky Mt. Spotted Fever and several systemic(spelling?) infections from ticks thru the years.

My wife and I do tick checks all the time... sometimes spontaneously

I've lived in the country and I've been around dogs and ticks my whole life...50 plus years... and never used anything but my fingers to pull a tick out of dogs, cats, people...Never been sick, nor have any dogs or people...Use the pour on that your vet recommends, and apply it every 30-45 days during the tick season. That's March thru August for me. I have never seen a tick that is willing to give up his head when pulled, but sure have heard alot of old wive's tales about how afraid of them we should all be...

hettmoe wrote:I've lived in the country and I've been around dogs and ticks my whole life...50 plus years... and never used anything but my fingers to pull a tick out of dogs, cats, people...Never been sick, nor have any dogs or people...Use the pour on that your vet recommends, and apply it every 30-45 days during the tick season. That's March thru August for me. I have never seen a tick that is willing to give up his head when pulled, but sure have heard alot of old wive's tales about how afraid of them we should all be...

Ditto. I've never had to use a "specialty tool" to get ticks off. I just pull them off with my fingers. We get them all the time here in Missouri. I get them, the dogs get them. I do have them on Frontline and it does kill the ticks (and fleas), but not until they bite. But it still works here in MO for us.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I'm looking for some input. I have a 12 week old pup, has had Frontline on for 3 weeks. In the last 3 days I have pulled 10+ ticks off her. Now I will say that the ticks I pulled off, minus one lone star tick that held on for dear life, have looked like they've seen better days. I assume this is from the frontline after they bite? Thinking of switching to Advantix because of the permethrin, hoping it will keep them off her period. Fiance is not to happy about finding them when she's loving on the pup. And having lost a few of my parents pups lost due to Lyme, I'm not too keen on them either. Any help/advice is appreciated.

I'm horrified to hear that some people remove ticks with their fingers. You should NEVER remove a tick with your fingers because even the slightest pressure on the ticks body can expel the disease carrying saliva from the tick into the dog. Always grab the tick by it's head. Fine point tweezers is one of the best tools for removing ticks, a tick removal tool works well too. Those who have been using their fingers should consider themselves lucky that their ticks weren't carrying disease or maybe they weren't aware their dogs were infected, the prevalence of TBD's has greatly increased over the years. Use gloves when handling ticks (and tick removal instruments) or thoroughly wash your hands as TBD's can also infect people.

Deuce wrote:Not trying to hijack the thread, but I'm looking for some input. I have a 12 week old pup, has had Frontline on for 3 weeks. In the last 3 days I have pulled 10+ ticks off her. Now I will say that the ticks I pulled off, minus one lone star tick that held on for dear life, have looked like they've seen better days. I assume this is from the frontline after they bite? Thinking of switching to Advantix because of the permethrin, hoping it will keep them off her period. Fiance is not to happy about finding them when she's loving on the pup. And having lost a few of my parents pups lost due to Lyme, I'm not too keen on them either. Any help/advice is appreciated.

I can honestly say that I have used Avantix for 13 years and never seen a tic or flea. It is not cheap.

http://www.petparents.com/show.aspx/pro ... dvantix-ii

Frontline has a new kind out called certifect. It kills eleven kinds of tics. Once they bite, it kills the tics with in six hours. My vet said that once a tic bites,it takes almost 24 to 48 hours to transfer the lymes disease. I also got my pup the lymes vaccine for extra protection.

Sharon - Thanks for the input. If it works for me it is well worth the money.

frontline wrote:I'm horrified to hear that some people remove ticks with their fingers. You should NEVER remove a tick with your fingers because even the slightest pressure on the ticks body can expel the disease carrying saliva from the tick into the dog. Always grab the tick by it's head. Fine point tweezers is one of the best tools for removing ticks, a tick removal tool works well too. Those who have been using their fingers should consider themselves lucky that their ticks weren't carrying disease or maybe they weren't aware their dogs were infected, the prevalence of TBD's has greatly increased over the years. Use gloves when handling ticks (and tick removal instruments) or thoroughly wash your hands as TBD's can also infect people.

What do you do in the woods when you look down and see a dozen or so ticks on your shirt and pants?
A tick the size of a pinhead is hard to grab by the head.
I've used one of those sticky lint rollers to remove microscopic seed ticks off me and my dogs, they work well.

asc wrote:

frontline wrote:I'm horrified to hear that some people remove ticks with their fingers. You should NEVER remove a tick with your fingers because even the slightest pressure on the ticks body can expel the disease carrying saliva from the tick into the dog. Always grab the tick by it's head. Fine point tweezers is one of the best tools for removing ticks, a tick removal tool works well too. Those who have been using their fingers should consider themselves lucky that their ticks weren't carrying disease or maybe they weren't aware their dogs were infected, the prevalence of TBD's has greatly increased over the years. Use gloves when handling ticks (and tick removal instruments) or thoroughly wash your hands as TBD's can also infect people.

What do you do in the woods when you look down and see a dozen or so ticks on your shirt and pants?
A tick the size of a pinhead is hard to grab by the head.
I've used one of those sticky lint rollers to remove microscopic seed ticks off me and my dogs, they work well.

If a tick isn't embedded in you or your dog I don't think it matters how you get them off and your method sounds like a good one. The smaller the tick the more important it is to have something appropriate to remove it if it's embedded, fine point tweezers or a tick removal tool is better than fingers. Once you remove the tick you can check to see if the 2 mouth parts came with it. Save the tick on a piece of scotch tape if you want to later identify it.

Tick removal videos from the American Lyme Disease Foundation using fine point tweezers: http://www.aldf.com/videos.shtml
Here is a method using a knife, in this method a small divot of skin must come off with the tick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6BnpuhVe-Q
This video shows 2 different techniques used on people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9dsmFVP ... re=related
Here is how to NOT remove a tick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJiu1-4tyGk&feature=fvw

i've started useing avantix as per sharon's sugguestion found at least a dozen ticks last week on me only one on my pup i was all most dead it seems to work good $$$$$$

I'm sure all of this material is good but what I hear is that many like myself have removed them for years with our fingers and have never experienced a single problem. I do think sometimes we invent problems to sell products and tis may be one of them. I'm sure there are better ways but when the worst possible way works without causing problems it makes you think we may just be solving a non-existent problem.

Ezzy

Seeing all these threads on ticks sure makes me appreciate living in a place where we don't have to deal with them.

brad27 wrote:Seeing all these threads on ticks sure makes me appreciate living in a place where we don't have to deal with them.

Where I live we had a very mild winter - not much snow- and an early spring. The insects have just ballooned in number.

ibbowhunting wrote:i've started useing avantix as per sharon's sugguestion found at least a dozen ticks last week on me only one on my pup i was all most dead it seems to work good $$$$$$

Only problems for dogs that live in the house is that you can't shampoo on the dog - only water.

ezzy333 wrote:I'm sure all of this material is good but what I hear is that many like myself have removed them for years with our fingers and have never experienced a single problem. I do think sometimes we invent problems to sell products and tis may be one of them. I'm sure there are better ways but when the worst possible way works without causing problems it makes you think we may just be solving a non-existent problem.

Ezzy

You can't help everybody, some people only learn the hard way.

Sharon wrote:

ibbowhunting wrote:i've started useing avantix as per sharon's sugguestion found at least a dozen ticks last week on me only one on my pup i was all most dead it seems to work good $$$$$$

Only problems for dogs that live in the house is that you can't shampoo on the dog - only water.

I spoke to the Advatix people about this & they indicated that after 3 days you can shampoo your dog. Since ours are "house dogs" you can be sure there IS shampoo being used!

My experience with advantix is that is takes much longer to saturate the skin than frontline. Also you there is nearly twice as much volume to apply, but advantix has a repellent factor that frontline does not. And I do think advantix washes off a bit more with repeated washes. I think frontline is not effective enough for the fleas I seem to run into when we travel. I am using advantix currently, because it reples flies, but when I run out of both interceptor and advantix I am planning to use a trifexis/frontline combo.
I alternate ivomec with interceptor monthly to save a little $.

SubMariner wrote:

Sharon wrote:

ibbowhunting wrote:i've started useing avantix as per sharon's sugguestion found at least a dozen ticks last week on me only one on my pup i was all most dead it seems to work good $$$$$$

Only problems for dogs that live in the house is that you can't shampoo on the dog - only water.

I spoke to the Advatix people about this & they indicated that after 3 days you can shampoo your dog. Since ours are "house dogs" you can be sure there IS shampoo being used!

That's not what it says on the box.

What is? That you can, or can't wash the dog?

The box says "After 3 days you can shampoo your dog BUT don't use a detergent based shampoo." ( whatever that is.)

The directions say " Shampooing of the dog may shorten the duration of the protection, therefore a re application following shampooing is recommended."

So, I've decided to wash dogs with our outside warm water hose after muddy training times and wash with shampoo the day before the next application of Advantix is due.

Don't use the Dog Advantix on the cat as it will kill the cat. Hmmm

Sharon wrote:The box says "After 3 days you can shampoo your dog BUT don't use a detergent based shampoo." ( whatever that is.)

The directions say " Shampooing of the dog may shorten the duration of the protection, therefore a re application following shampooing is recommended."

So, I've decided to wash dogs with our outside warm water hose after muddy training times and wash with shampoo the day before the next application of Advantix is due.

Don't use the Dog Advantix on the cat as it will kill the cat. Hmmm

Here is an example of a non-detergent shampoo: http://www.amazon.com/HyLyt-Moisturizin ... 288&sr=8-1

Non-detergent shampoo's use fatty acids to clean and they are very mild you can use them everyday without drying the skin, they work very well. This one is very light scented and the best shampoo for a dog IMO.

"HyLyt Shampoo is a coconut scented, gentle, hypoallergenic, soap-free formulation with emollients for moisturizing and protein for conditioning of hair coat - natural moisturizing factors promote hydration, while essential fatty acids replenish the epidermal barrier and aid in the control of flaking and scaling - use as often as necessary."

Thank you very much.

Frontline does not seem to be working as well as it used to, so we switched to Certifect which works very well. I use a Tick Twister Pro, it works great on the dogs AND me.

Sharon wrote:The box says "After 3 days you can shampoo your dog BUT don't use a detergent based shampoo." ( whatever that is.)

The directions say " Shampooing of the dog may shorten the duration of the protection, therefore a re application following shampooing is recommended."

So, I've decided to wash dogs with our outside warm water hose after muddy training times and wash with shampoo the day before the next application of Advantix is due.

Don't use the Dog Advantix on the cat as it will kill the cat. Hmmm

I can only relay what I was told by an actual human being from the company that makes the product. I have never had to re-apply the product nor have I noticed any decrease in its effectiveness after washing the dog(s).

The product does not work by staying on the surface of the dog's skin, otherwise you would have to apply it all over the dog. Topicals are absorbed into the dog's skin and is released all over its body. I think the "you have to reapply it after shampooing" thing is BS and just a way for them to sell more stuff.

Well they finally hit here after some wet weather.

I broke down and bought Advantix II.

Has anyone used the Preventic collars?

For roughly $15 (lasts 3 months) I think they work great and they seem to keep tics from attaching, something the spot on's don't always do.