Great! Instead of squishing them, I'll send mine over to you in little matchboxes. You can be the first tick rescue centre
Touch wood - Coco's never had a tick, but after a romp through long grass this morning, losing his ball several times and searching for it, I've just given him a thorough examination - he thought it was great. You're rubbing your hands all over me? I have to lay down for a tummy rub too? This is too much
Ugh, ticks sound horrid. I was pretty sure that we didn't have them here, but google tells me that we do have cattle ticks. Fortunately we're urban and Xena's never even seen a cow. But now I know that if we ever walk through a field that has had cattle in it, that I need to thoroughly check her over. I've spent too many hours combing nits out of my kid's hair - the last thing I want is to pick ticks off the dog!
I'm terrified of ticks and the fear mongering around here this year is huge, with the tick population growing, not dying off in the winter and more lyme disease. I've never seen a tick...we are supposed to check dogs daily. Can you see ticks on black dogs? I check her ears, between her toes and belly but I don't really know what I'm looking for!
I find it easiest with Willow to check her in the dark. I shine a torch over her, and that shows them up, because they are browny-red against her black. Because I tend to be pretty fastidious about checking, I only get small ones that haven't had a chance to become engorged. When engorged, they're the size of a pea, apparently (never seen one like that) and probably quite hard to miss. The ones I take off are generally about 1.5 - 2mm across and quite flat. There's not really any mistaking them. Their legs are really wriggly and just ick. Favourite places for them is between the toes, on elbows, the lower part of the leg and ear flaps, although they can appear pretty much anywhere. I had to take one off Shadow's bumhole once
I find it really hard to find ticks on my black dog until they're big enough to stop the hair lying flat. I'm pretty fastidious about tick treatment as a result. I have got pretty adept with the old tick tool now though. Much easier to find them crawling through Obi's white fur even though it's so much longer and thicker (he's seriously hairy!)
I struggle checking Luna because her coat is so bloomin' dense! But, it also seems that, because it's so dense, the ticks can't get in, either. So far.
I found a tick on Plum today. I was stroking her and found a little 'bobble,' looked like a wart, on her back lower leg. It took a while to dawn on me it was a tick. Am I gross because I took great pleasure in using my tick tool (which worked beautifully)and I was fascinated by the little blighter? Kept it in a glass till my son came back from school to take a look. Then flushed it down the loo.
Used to despise those days. I once picked at least 12 mummy nits out of my sons hair after he returned from a school residential trip. We placed them on the side of the bath and watched how long they would live, it was hours and hours when apparently they don't survive once removed from the hair - nope!
I remember taking my son to get his hair cut after a bout of nits. Was mortified to find he was still crawling with them . I was clearly a bit hopeless on the nit front!
