Ticks
Although small, ticks can cause major health issues by spreading dangerous diseases like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Dogs are very susceptible to tick bites and tickborne diseases.
Vaccines are not available for most of the tickborne diseases that dogs can get, and they don’t keep the dogs from bringing ticks into your home. For these reasons, it’s important to use a tick preventive product on your dog.
We recommend BRAVECTO Chew and BRAVECTO Topical Solution for Dogs. It kills ticks (black-legged tick, American dog tick, and brown dog tick) for 12 weeks and kills lone star ticks for 8 weeks.
Tick bites may be hard to detect.
Signs of tickborne disease may not appear for 7-21 days or longer after a tick bite, so watch your dog closely for changes in behavior or appetite if you suspect that your pet has been bitten by a tick.
Tick Facts:
- Ticks are not insects; they are classified as arachnids, or relatives of spiders, scorpions, and mites.
- Ticks must have a blood meal to survive.
- Ticks crawl up low brush or grass to find a host. They use their back legs to hold onto the grass and reach their front legs out to grab onto a passing animal or human. This process is called questing. They sometimes drop from their perch and free fall onto a passing host!
- The American Dog Tick and the brown dog tick prefer dogs as hosts. Dogs are easy targets when playing in the yard or going for a walk in the woods.
- Ticks can feed for long periods of time. They bury their curved teeth deeply into the skin of a host, so they can remain securely attached for days on end to eat. It’s important to note that ticks generally require 24-48 hours of feeding before they can successfully transmit infections like Lyme disease. Prompt removal is a necessity.
Click the link below to see how to remove a tick (link takes you out of the Pet Care site and onto The Center for Disease Control site)