A Beginner’s Guide to Removing Ticks from Your Dog

While minute in size, ticks are a serious threat to the safety and health of your dogs. Indeed, these blood-sucking creatures aren’t just a nuisance as they can spread deadly tick-borne diseases to your furbabies. This is why you should regularly check your dogs for ticks, in order to keep them safe and healthy. 

If you do spot a tick on your dog, it’s crucial that you are able to remove them immediately. This is easier said than done as removing ticks can be quite tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing. To help you, we’ve prepared a brief explainer on tick removal. If this is something that you want to learn more about, read on for our beginner’s guide to removing ticks from your dog.

Put Gloves On

While you do need to remove ticks as soon as possible, you should also ensure that you are safe when doing so. We understand it may be tempting to attempt to remove the tick once you see it but it’s important that you take the necessary precautions. Before doing anything, we recommend that you put gloves on. The ticks found on your dog also pose a threat to you. This is especially true when you consider that  Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the entirety of the United States. On average, around 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Soothe Your Pet

It’s also important to keep your dog calm when removing ticks. This is because you’ll need them to stay still so that you can properly detach the tick from the affected area. There’s no one way to do this as it will depend on your dog. One common way that you can calm and soother your pet is by holding them. Most dogs like to be rubbed in the belly so that’s always a good place to start. With that being said, different dogs respond differently so just rub your dog in their favored area.

Expose the Tick

Once your pet is calm, it’s time to prepare to remove the tick. You have to put your pet in the right position so that you can remove the tick properly. After putting your dog in the right position, you have to part your dog’s fur around the tick. Make sure to keep their fur flat with one hand so you can have the other hand free to remove the tick.

Remove the Tick

In order to extract a tick, you’ll need to make use of a tick twister or a tick hook. This tool is shaped in a way that can get under the tick’s body and remove it with ease. Due to how common ticks are, these can be found at just about any pet store. To remove a tick, slowly slide it underneath the tick and twist it gently and steadily move it upwards.

Conclusion

We hope this article proves to be useful when it comes to helping you remove ticks from your dogs. It’s important that you get ticks off as soon as possible as they can spread diseases to your furry friend. Be sure to follow this guide in order to effectively and safely remove ticks.

If you’re looking for a pet supply store that can provide you with all your pet grooming and nutrition needs, then we’ve got you covered. We here at Earthwise Pet Supply & Grooming Bentonville offer a wide array of products that are geared towards helping your dog have a healthy and happy life. For more information about our products, check out our website today!