ticks on a dog

Question
I thought I felt a tick under my dogs chin and it looked like a very big tick. We tried to pull it off and it mashed into a bloody mess.Now I'm wondering if it was a tick.  If so, we didn't get it all out.  I will look again today when I get home, but is this important now that the tick, if it was one, is dead.  She may have had some sort of growth and we thought it was a tick.  What should I do?  Thanks

Answer
Well, take a good look at it with a flashlight. If you see a dark spot and a few legs sticking out, it was a tick. It will fall out (what's left of it) when it heals.

If there is just a bloody piece of skin there then it could have been a skin tags- which are common on older dogs.

If it is now gone it will heal up. If not, you should have the vet remove the rest of it.

Anything big and black that isn't a tick could be a melanoma so it's very important to have those looked at by the vet. Those are deadly skin cancers.