How to Remove a Tick from Your Dog

Discovering a tick on your dog is scary. There are so many old-wives-tales about how to remove a tick safely, so here are a few steps to helping remove the parasite from your furry friend.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Latex gloves
• Tweezers
• Rubbing alcohol
• Hydrogen Peroxide
• Neosporin
• Q-tips
• Empty glass jar

1. 
    

   Before you touch anything, put on a pair of rubber or latex gloves. You do not want to touch your dog or the tick with your bare skin. Touching the tick may make you ill, as ticks carry many diseases. Touching the dog's wound could also cause an infection if your hands are not clean.

2. 
    

   With the rubbing alcohol, sanitize a pair of tweezers. Have the dog lay down in a comfortable position that allows you to fully see the tick. HYave someone hold the dog as still as possible while you work. It will be difficult to keep the dog still, as this can become a painful experience for your pup, so have your helper pet the dog and speak to it soothingly as you go. With the tweezers, grip the tick as close to the head and the dog's skin as possible. Very gently and slowly pull with a soft levering motion to remove it. Do not squeeze the tick, as this can cause it to release harmful bacteria into your dog. This process will take a lot of patience, as you do not want to yank it out or pull too quickly. Try to keep the tick intact, including the head.

3. 
    

   Once the tick is finally out, he needs to be "quarantined." This will prevent the spread of any disease the tick may be carrying, and will also help to identify it and preserve it in the event that you have to take your dog to the vet. Keeping the gloves on, place the tick in a glass jar or other closeable container.

4. 
    

   Clean the wound with peroxide and apply Neosporin or Bacitracin to fight infection. Check the wound daily to make sure that swelling goes down and that it is healing properly. Continue to clean and apply ointment daily with a Q-tip. If in a few days the wound is still red, swollen, has not gotten better, or has gotten any worse, take your dog to the vet as soon as possible.

5. If, when you were attempting to dislodge the creepy critter, the back end of the tick became separated and the head is left in your dog, don't panic. It will look like a black dot in the middle of the wound where the tick was biting. Do not attempt to dislodge the head yourself, as this will only make your dog more uncomfortable and may do more damage than good. Clean the wound with the peroxide and apply antibiotic ointment as you would if the head had been fully removed. Again, check the wound daily for changes and to be sure it is healing properly. Redness should diminish, but since the head was left behind, there may be a little lump there for a few days. Just make sure there is no additional swelling to the area and the redness has subsided. Your dog's body is an amazing thing, and when it senses a foreign object in the skin it will start to reject it. Continue to clean the wound and add antibiotic ointment daily with a Q-tip. Soon it will simply fall out by itself. If, however, in a few days the wound has not gotten better, or has gotten any worse, take your dog to the vet.

6. 
    

   Also watch your dog's behavior. Some species of ticks can carry lyme disease, which can be spread to your dog if bitten. Here are a few symptoms to look for:
   * LOSS OF APPETITE
   * LETHARGY
   * BULLS-EYE SHAPED RASH NEAR BITE AREA
   * FEVER
   * LAMENESS (FULL OR PARTIAL)
   * ENLARGED LYMPH NODES (In dogs, lymph nodes are located in the armpits of the front legs, jaw-area of the neck, front of the shoulders, inside of the back legs and opposite the knee of the back leg.)
   All dogs, like people, do not react the same to disease or infection. Symptoms for lyme disease do not often show up until a few months after the tick bite occurred, so be sure to record the date you removed the tick for your records in case you see symptoms start to form later. Your dog may show signs of some symptoms and not others. If you see any change in your dog's behavior that makes you nervous, call your vet.

Tips & Warnings

• I have personally tried the "hold a hot match to the tick's back end" trick, and it did nothing except turn the tick's back end a dark black color. It does NOT force the tick to "back out on its own" as often claimed.
• Applying nailpolish remover, alcohol, vaseline, oil or anything else to the end of the tick also will do nothing in your attempts to make it back out by itself.
• I have also heard of some people twisting the tick around with the tweezers instead of pulling, but if the tick is attached well enough, this will only break the back end from it's head. Levering as you pull (softly angling the back and forth) is the smoothest way to remove the tick while keeping it intact.
• Even though you used gloves as a procautionary measure, make sure you wash those hands when you are done!
• This advice is by no means meant as a substitute for the advice of your Vetrinarian!

[kabney]

on 3/10/2009 Eeeww, ticks make me shiver. Good article 5* and a recommend.

[hazelknows]

on 2/19/2009 Good article and information .