Protect Your Dog From Ticks

Depending on the area of the where you live there are different kinds of ticks that can seriously cause health problems for your dog and your family.

Since I live in Pa., I will tell about the kinds we have in our state.

According to the Penn State entomology department, the most common ticks in the state of Pennsylvania, include the Blacklegged tick (deer tick), and Lone Star tick, the American Dog tick and the Groundhog tick.

The American Dog tick is the tick most often encountered in our area. The immature stages are frequently found on small rodents such as meadow mice. They have distinctive markings on their back.
The adults are frequently found on dogs.

Other hosts include: cats,cattle, donkey, hog, horse, mule, sheep, coyote, deer, fox, wolf, wildcat, badger, oppssum, rabbit, raccoon, rat, skunk, squirrel, and weasel.

The Lone Star tick larvae feed on a variety of small animals and large animals. The adults are found at all stages on deer and will feed on humans.

The Groundhog tick is a host-specific for groundhogs, but can be found on birds and small animals, and humans.

Hosts for the deer tick include birds and small animals such as squirrels and mice, and the larve; the nymphs will also feed on mammals and birds while the adult tick prefer deer. Any stage of this tick can feed on humans.

The diseases carried by ticks are Lyme Disease; Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever; and Tularemia, also know as rabbit fever; babesiosis and a condition known as tick paralysis, which is a condition caused by toxins that a tick injects into its host during feeding.

Ticks can be active in temperatures as low as 28 degrees, if there is no snow on the ground.

Best advice to avoid ticks is to wear protective clothing, as a long sleeved shirt and long pants tucked into the top of your socks. Be sure to check your dog and your body daily for the presence of ticks.

Use tick repellants, DEET, or permethrins on your dog and yourself when walking in the woods or tall grassy areas.

If you find a tick use tweezers to carefully remove ticks attached to the skin. Apply gentle constant preasure where the tick attaches to the skin, not on the body of the tick. Seek medical attention if any signs or symptoms of Lyme disease appear.

While in Fl., at the wildlife compound, a stray cattle dog wandered into the property. It was covered with ticks that were blown up like small ballons filled with the dog's blood. We set to work on removing them. If he had not found our place he would have died from blood loss. I had never seen a dog so covered with ticks in all my life.

Anyone have anything to share, please add it here.

Since we have started discussing types of ticks and fleas are some more resistant to certain tick and flea treatments?My chow chow use to be flea free just by using the anti-flea and tick dog shampoo once every ten days as per the instructions. I would then use another type of shampoo on the other days I would give her a bath. Recently however the shampoo does not seem to work anymore and she had an infestation. I then got her a gentler tick and flea soap that the vet recommended so I could bathe her more frequently and hopefully control the infestation. That did not work so we resorted to a once a month anti-flea and tick treatment. That worked but I'm not keen on giving the dog such a powerful treatment every month as it might contain too much chemicals so I'm looking for other options.

trishgl,
For my dog I always used Frontline, only because it worked on him. Some people use the Advantx II products, but that did not work on my dog.

I didn't like flea collars, because when my dog played he would get it caught on branches, and other dogs often grabbed ahold of the collar, trying to tug it off him.

I am like you I hate the chemicals.

A friend of mine said putting cider vinagar in their dogs feed helped ward of fleas and ticks. It did not work on my dog.

Another thing sometimes when they load up with fleas and nothing works to get the fleas off, your dog might have a health problem that need attention.

One friend, her retriver was loaded with fleas and they went to the vet, turns out the dog had a growth along its spine.

I spoke with a friend of mine that uses only homemade or herbal items on her cats to prevent fleas. She uses brewer's yeast (not bakers yeast), on her cats.

She rubs some into their fur once a week, and when they clean themselves, some of it gets digested.

She thinks the fleas don't like the taste of her cats blood because of yeast. Anyways, her cats are flea free.

For dogs you could try mixing some in their feed, or rubbing some into their fur and see if it works.

Thanks for the advice. I have also tried tick and flea powders but I'm not keen on chemicals in powder form floating around my house and sofa which is where my chow loves to sit. I've tried several types of herbal soaps but that did not work either. I'll try the brewers yeast and hope that works. I'll keep you posted.