Found a Tick. Should I be alarmed?

[RSX JDM Integra]

I saw a black looking bug on Cookie today and to my surprise it was a tick. It looks very much like one from the pictures I looked at on the internet but is pretty small. Looks like a crab-like spider?

Anyway, it was on the fur-coat of the dog and I grabbed it off. I looked everywhere else on her and found no more ticks. Just one and only one. Is it safe to assume she will be alright? I checked for bite marks on her but it's pretty difficult to search, given that her entire body is covered in fur. But to my knowledge and thorough checking, there are no bites.

 

[Mac'sMom]

If you saw one, chances are there will be more. Do you have any idea where she might have picked up the tick? If she picked it us in your yard I would put something on her. We had Mac on Sentinal which covers heartworm and other worms. Also sterizes fleas but does nothing for ticks. When I found the first tick I told myself it was a fluck. Wrong! After the 4th tick I switched Mac to Interceptor for heart worm and added Frontline Plus for fleas and ticks. Didn't want to but....

 

[simplymisty]

Get some K9 Advantage and put it on.

 

[SummerRiot]

If what you found was a tick- you caught it just in time before it latched on.

ticks bite, become engorged then they are extremelty slow moving IF they leave the host.

I hope you killed the tick that you found.

Whenever I found one on a dog at work I'd put it into a bag and spray it with clippercide to kill it. They are fairly hard to squish.

If you really want to make sure there are no ticks on your pup, comb through with a metal comb everywhere!

Ticks seem to prefer around the neck, behind ears, inner thighs - all the "warm spots" on a dog.

Do you have your pup on any prevenative?

Riot, my dog, is on Revolution - it doesn't "prevent ticks" come biting, but it kills them once they have bitten.

Is your area known for bad tick infestations?

 

[klaker]

If you pulled the tick off the fur of your dog, you are just fine as the tick did not bite.

 

[RSX JDM Integra]

I don't have any idea where the tick might have came from. I found a black foreign object on her and thought it was lint but it was a bug that had the body like of a sesame seed.

I still have the tick and it is dead.

Not sure what I should do but I have flea and tick shampoos.

I didn't think South Florida would have ticks being that I read that most pathogenic-carrying ticks are found in the Northeast.

I currently don't have my dog on any other preventative other than the shampoo.

 

[SummerRiot]

Here are unengorged ticks;

here is another picture of the different kinds;

Here is a picture of what a tick looks like when its engorged..

 

[doggiegroomer]

Tick like to hang out in wooded areas with a lot of underbush. Once an animal walks by, they hitch a ride and find a nice spot to start sucking blood. There are tons of different species of ticks, but the most common (in my area of southeast VA, at least) that I see are dog ticks and deer ticks. Dog ticks are fairly big, even before they become engorged. Deer ticks are teeny tiny and THOSE are the ones that carry all the nice human diseases like Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I keep my dog on flea and tick preventive mainly because I am TOTALLY creeped out by ticks, I see one and my skin starts crawling. Fleas don't bug (HAH!) me out as much, but I see a tick and I want to do the whole jump on a table and start going "eww! Eww! eww!" thing.

I'm not positive, but I believe that ticks are pretty widespread areas that are pretty warm in the summer.

And FYI, about 99% of flea and tick shampoos just kill whats on the dog, and doesn't prevent anymore from hopping back on. And the cheaper brands (Hartz, Sgt. Pepper or whatever its called) are pretty toxic to the animal and not so much to the parasite.

Oh, and another place that ticks love to hang out on dogs is between the toes. So be sure to check there. Ticks are sneaky little buggers.

 

[Dizzy]

God they're vile.

I went away the other week, and we ended up staying on a farm.

Next night I found 4 ticks on Bodhi - never seen one in person before!! Took her to the vets and we found SEVEN!!

She had antibiotics, tick stuff and it came to £40!!!! Meeeeep!!

 

[RSX JDM Integra]

SummerRiot,

I greatly appreciate your time in getting pictures of the tick types. I also would like to those who have contributed to this thread. You guys are awesome

I would say that I saw an unfed Bush Tick. It did not look engorged or fat what-so-ever. It was just small and looked like a sesame seed size (one you might find on a hamburger bun) and thats about it. It was probably in its larval stage.

Would I be too paranoid as to propose a Tick/Flea bombing of the household?

 

[simplymisty]

doggiegroomer - you crack me up!!! ROFL

Of course I was much worse when I first de-wormed my foster puppies (none of my dogs ever had worms and for what ever reason I just didn't think they would come out) I have a huge fear of worms. So about 1 - 2 hours after the vet gave all 7 puppies the meds and they started coming out straight worms that looked like spag. and moving. I think I woke the neighborhood with my screaming. My son actually called my sister and told her she had to "come quick, it's an emergency" and she helped clean them up. NASTY! It was so gross that I actually got sick and didn't eat for days and needless to say, the only noodles we now own are rotini - LOL


I don't know that you need to go as far as bombing your house. I didn't do that when our dogs had them from being out on the farm (which we all came back with them). But I would do what ever you feel most comfortable with.

 

[MelissaCato]

Good post SummerRiot.

 

[Denaluvscorgis]

Now I have the heebie jeebies after SR's pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were very informative though!!

 

[bubbatd]

Should be a sticky !!! Believe me , with things like Advantix today,dog owners are SO lucky !!! Shampoos have to be so strong to kill everything , they are dangerous . One year our fleas and ticks were so bad , they set up dunking stations .... huge vats of chemicals ! I realize how how dangerous those were . Luckily the dogs I dunked lived a long life . One of my early whelping was during a horrible summer flea infestation . I got a nit comb and did the pups twice a day . Had a bowl of alcohol to dip comb in . I couldn't spray the Mom . Nothing like finding 5 to 10 fleas on 3 week old pups !

 

[doggiegroomer]

Yeah, SummerRiots pictures DEF gave me the creepy crawlies! One time I had a groom dog that was completely infested with ticks (there had to be at least 250 on it). I just about cried. Now, if there are just a couple ticks on a dog, I will pull them off (while jumping up and down saying "ew ew ew ew ew!"), but with that many, I couldn't. There were just too many, and it seemed more like a job for a vet with some powerful chemicals, and who has the ability to treat her for the anemia that she MUST have. I mean, half that dogs blood supply must be inside those engorged little tick bellies! So I let the dog sit in all natural flea and tick for about ten minutes, fuming over the moms comment when she dropped the dog off: "now, I found a tick on her this morning, but she may have a couple more..." You think? Ugh, there is NO reason for your dog to be infested with parasites like that! And just think, if the DOG looks like that, imagine what the house looks like.......

 

[RSX JDM Integra]

Does finding one tick necessarily mean that there are more in the house? I'm guessing no because ticks don't just crawl into your house. They attach themselves through contact.

 

[RSX JDM Integra]

I just found something on my dog's fur and I tried to snatch it and it went under and now I can't find it. Not sure if it was a tick but it did not look like one. Looked more like the size and shape of a "-" and it just went inward.

 

[bubbatd]

Could have been a flea that flew ! Ticks don't disappear under the skin .

 

[milos_mommy]

since it was on the fur, i doubt it bit, but if it did bite, then YES BE CONCERNED.

take your dog for a blood test. i found a tick on Milo and decided i would watch him for signs of illness and if he didn't show anything unusual he'd be fine.

it was almost 4 months later, when he got a completely unrelated bloodtest, that i learned he had lymes disease.

 

[RSX JDM Integra]

I'm more worried of getting Lyme's disease than anything else.

I don't wanna die! lol