Dog owners (ticks)

We always pull them off, when she first had one we took her to the vets as we didn't know what it was, but said just hold it and pull quickly.

I hate it, it makes me cringe, you can see their legs wiggling uurrghhhh.

If you think your dog won't sit there for you I would take him to the vets, but could you try getting him on the floor and stroking him, thats what we do with Tilly!

The biggest one I've everseen was attached to the back of my calf.

They hate tobacco

DON'T pull it off. It detaches the mouth part, which stays embedded in the dog.

I had one on my dog a while ago, and was advised to soak it in alcohol - it will eventually then fall off by itself (it might take about half an hour or so). I didn't have any surgical alcohol, so I used vodka. That worked ?

You should definitely not try and pull it out. As FW says, they frequently break leaving the head in which can cause nasty infections.

If you can get to your vet easily buy a tick remover (sorry can't remember the correct name). It's plastic with a V at the bottom which you hook around the tick and twist it out intact.

Otherwise cotton wool soaked in nail polish remover, neat alcohol or if your dog has short hair, the tip of a freshly blown out match.

The vet will take it off. We took our cat the first time. They will however sell tick implement things that take it out safely.

I am confused now as our vet told us to pull it out! You have me worried now that I'll harm our dog!

Either alcohol or smothering it in vaseline will make it drop off. They are evil little things.

DONT PULL IT OFF

The head may come away from the body then youll never get it out and it will become infected, instead smother the body of the tick in anything that has an oily/greasy substance, vaseline,butter,savlon,face cream make sure you cover it with a good dollop, when ticks are inbedded in dogs/cats/sheep etc they breathe through the skin covering their body so covering the body of the tick in a greasy /oily substance stops it from breathing and kills it. It can take anything upto a couple of days to happen,then it just falls off, dont let your dog do what our dog did though, he saw it on the floor when it fell off and bit it, blood squirted all over my wall lol

Our cats get them sometimes - so far the dogs have escaped. Our vet also said not to pull it off in case the jaws get left behind and cause an infection in the bite-wound. I've heard all sorts of remedies, including the match head, vaseline and tick-pen ideas already mentioned, and they all seem to work. Our vet suggested another method - get a pair of tweezers and grasp the tick firmly. Turn the tweezers as if you were unscrewing a screw and keep twisting until the tick comes away. Have a tissue on hand to grasp the remains!!!!

Our old dog had ticks a couple of times. My mum bathed them with cotton wool and alcohol as previously mentioned and they fell off.

I remember the first time, my sister and I were very shocked when we went into the kitchen to find this grey thing crawling up the side of a glass (after it fell off my mum had kept it in the glass to show my dad when he got home from work).

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Sorry. I just couldn't resist sharing that story, the sad thing is that it's a very vivid childhood memory for me. In my mum's defence, she didn't realise it was still alive.