Removing a tick safely
A tick is a parasite that will latch on to your dog, burrow its mouth parts into the skin of your dog and then feed by sucking on your dog’s blood. This can cause irritation and infection at the site and if the tick is carrying something like Lyme Disease, it can infect your dog and make him very ill indeed. Removing Ticks is very easy and should be done as soon as possible.
If you try to remove the tick with your bare hands by simply pinching and twisting the tick to remove him, you also run the risk of:-
a) injecting the toxic stomach contents from the tick in to your dog
b) infecting yourself should the stomach contents touch your bare skin where you have any cuts, openings or whitlows as this is an entry route by which the bacteria will enter.
By far the safest thing to do is to get yourself a tick picker, grasping as close as possible to the dog’s skin and around the tick’s neck, and then simply pulling gently under constant pressure until the tick lets go.
Once removed, place the tick in a plastic bag and freeze it for a couple of days, or in a pot of alcohol to preserve it for a couple of days. Should the dog become unwell, infected or show any ill effects from the tick, you can then take him to the vet, with the tick, and the vet will be able to get to the bottom of exactly what is going on much, much faster than by simply taking blood tests from your dog.
Today, Rain (our middle Ridgeback) had a tick on the side of his head, just below his ear, so we took the opportunity to remove it while being video’d so you can see exactly how to do it.
If the tick is anywhere delicate such as in the ear canal, the gum line, the eye lid, or the genital region, it is safer to have the dog attend the vet ASAP for it to be removed by a professional.
Should you be interested in purchasing your own tick picker just like the one we use in the clip, here’s the link: Buy Tick Picker here
