Treating your dog after Tick bites

Sometimes, you just can’t prevent it from happening. Ticks on dogs are irritating. Maybe you’ve tried all you can think of. If you’ve used a tick collar on your dog, and even used vaccines to prevent the spread of Lyme disease and other illnesses carried by ticks that still can’t guarantee that ticks won’t be able to infest your dog. Vets can usually prescribe some tick preventives that are customized to your area and your dog, but even that’s a long shot.

So let’s accept the inevitable. One day, during your usual routine of checking your dog during the tick season, you suddenly discover one that’s lodged in your dog’s skin. Keep calm.

You can safely remove the tick using any of the methods that are available to you: maybe you can use a tick remover (a plastic shaped grappling tool that is specifically designed for removing ticks), or you’ve read somewhere that gently rubbing the tick can make it dizzy and release their bite. As soon as you discover it, pull it out firmly. Be careful not to leave any body parts behind. Apply alcohol (it may hurt a bit) or witch hazel to disinfect the area, and prevent any remaining bacteria from surviving.

Now that you’ve managed to secure your dog’s health, it will thank you for it immediately. It can sense that you’ve gotten rid of the pesky tick that it has probably been trying to dismantle as well, but without any success. Now it’s time for you to proper assess the situation. Most people will continue to panic, as they have read everywhere that ticks carry a large amount of possible diseases and that ticks on dogs can insert neurotoxins and other harmful substances in your dog’s bloodstream.

Well, rest assured. Neurotoxins (yes, those that can paralyze your dog) are only affecting it during the feeding cycle of a tick. They are not carried around; they are actually produced by the parasite. In some cases, the toxins are so strong that can even render the host dead. This is unfortunate, but nonetheless, it can happen, as long as the owner is careless and the ticks on dogs are not discovered at all, even after weeks in a row. But those owners that are careful can rest assured that the neurotoxin threat is over, once they removed the tick.

Next step will be to keep the dog under observation, see how the injury is evolving. If it is healing nicely, you can keep your mind at peace. However, if there’s puss coming out or the wound is getting reddish and inflammation is persistent, it’s best you visit the vet. Keep the removed tick in a plastic bag or any other container. This is a good advice, because it’s good for the vet to properly analyze the dog and the tick together, so that he/she can forensically determine a proper way of healing your dog completely.

Even though prevention works in most, if not all, of the cases, sometimes you just have to keep calm and deal with the consequences of having ticks on dogs. It won’t be long till your dog is healthy again, so rest assured.

If you are looking for more information about ticks and the ways to prevent your dogs from catching them, please visit this webpage: flåter på hunde is the term in Danish.   Treating your dogs with the proper products will prevent them catching fleas and ticks. To learn more, please visit : loppemidler til hunde is the Danish term.