Nightmare on Saddleridge St. Pt 1

[smileyzookie]

It was a dark and stormy night.. well actually it was pretty sunny around 8:30am, but anyway... *eerie music* a child cried in the distance, well not really it was just our loudmouth cat. Our poor dog came to us in distress.. then it happened! The giant monsters showed their faces!! Well, not really cause they are too small, their faces were hidden. Ok, we're lying they're tiny... they seemed like monsters... they are.... the TICKS!!! *eerie music* *screams of terror* --

 

Now I konw you probably think we're complete idiots, but my husband and I nearly died of complete terror when we found.. not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 ticks near her ears. And, there are probably more we havent found yet. So it took 2 of us, cringing and gaging to pull these off and hurl them in the toilet. We were nervous cause they kept thrashing around like they were gonna jump out and kill us. Through this entire ordeal, Riven didnt even know what was going on... anyway, the level headed, sane and perfectly rational parents we are, we called everyone we've ever known with a dog and told them we found ticks on her, and had absolutely no clue what to do. -- So, we go to training, and we're sick to our stomachs with worry, thinking our dog is tick infested, and then it happened. She rolled on her back, and we spied an ugly tick waving its but at us... almost like kiss my but, im gonna kill ur dog or something, wedged in her tummy with no intention of leaving this meal. And to make matters worse there as a perfect red ring around it. (anyone ever seen this? we actually are worried about that).. anyway..

 

We go to the vet, and they cant get us in, so they send a tech out who was nice and rolled her eyes at us for freakin out. She pulled it out and said it was a "brown dog tick". When she pulled it out, she used her nails, not sterilized tweezers like we did (and im not making that up), grabbed and yanked it out. She diagnosed her as being a dog with ticks. :eek: Which, we honestly were horrified to discover. We immediately proceeded to buy every single protect they sell for dog tick removal and prevention... and i mean everything...

 

- Frontline $15

- Cream for inflamation and antibiotics $10

- Shampoo $18

- Collars $30

- Frontline for the cat just in case $15

- Knowing you completely over reacted but your baby girl is safe --- Priceless

 

So now it has been 3 hours since our horrible ordeal began, we are home and my husband is running around all over the house, vacuuming, and sterlizing, doing laundry... woops there go the bed sheets.. he thinks there are ticks hiding everywhere and in the middle of the night, they'll climb out and stick to him. (I think he's more worried about his boy the cat - I mean he shaves his head.. not like they'll be intrested in him) He's acting like a vietnam vet having flashbacks of the battle of fleas in Missouri. He's all twitchy with a wierd far off look in his eye. Poor Riven has been manhandled, poked on, and medicated and is looking at us like.. you 2 are actually in charge?..and the cat is in the corner plotting his revenge.

 

Now I need opinions. We're goin to the sand dunes to camp tomorrow. Im pretty sure this is the same place she got ticks. Our plan of action is, use the tick collar till she goes in water and take it off. Come home Friday night and bathe her in tick shampoo. Then monday (gotta wait 2 days after bathing) give her Frontline. Does that sound like an ok plan? :confused:

 

We need tips, trick, comments on locating them, pulling out without losing our lunches whatever, and warning signs of anything serious, cause you better believe we'll have an eagle eye on her. If she looks at us funny we'll be rushing her to the vet.

[Odin's Momma]

That was a very very funny story, I am definitely LOLing at that one. Glad you all made it though okay

 

Btw . . .

 

we are home and my husband is running around all over the house, vacuuming, and sterlizing, doing laundry...

So, you get to be on the internet . . . while your husband does housework ? :eek:

 

 

Wanna trade?

[smileyzookie]

lol he's the greatest husband in the world I gotta tell you! He likes to clean in moments like this, that way he feels safe that he's taken all preventative measure lol

[PSmitty]

LOL! You're a great storyteller! I don't have any helpful advice, but I understand...the first time we found a tick, we panicked, too.

[sandra s.]

LOL thanks for the laugh!

 

I don't like them either. Luckily the feeling is mutual, so I only get one or two of my own per year.

Kessie apparently tastes WAY better. She gets a lot of them, so there were a lot of opportunities to experiment with pulling them out.

The only thing that works for me (ie doesn't have me clumsily ripping the tick's head off and leaving it in her skin) is a tick hook.

I have no idea if they are available in the States, but if they are, I'd get one of those. I'd get more than one, in fact, since they're small and easy to lose and mine are gone *cry*.

[laurie etc]

I don't know what your vet or the tech told you to do, but IMO I'd just use the Frontline now (it's at least a day before she's going to swim, right?) and she should be fine. It will kill any existing ticks/fleas you haven't found, and kill any more that get on her. It will still work even after swimming or bathing. I wouldn't double or triple up on the chemicals. Your goal is to only kill ticks and fleas, not the dog!

[MaggieDog]

I understand the grossness of ticks - never work at an animal shelter in the summer if you are scared of 'em - we had a pup come in that was ANEMIC because of ticks. :eek:

 

Any way I think you might want to tone down the treatment plan - that would be a ton of chemicals on your dog in a short period of time. Why not apply the Frontline asap so it has time to get distributed in the coat and then go on the hike? I've had no problems w/ ticks while my animals are on Frontline and it is waterproof after a certain point - 48 hours I think.

 

The collar is supposed to work well if it is a Preventic collar, otherwise they tend to only protect the front half of the dog. I don't know much about the shampoo option.

 

At the shelter we pulled ticks off w/ tweezers or a spoon like object designed for removing the buggers. To kill them, we dumped them into a bottle full of rubbing alcohol.

[mado]

bon app?tit :eek:

[donna frankland (uk)]

smileyzookie honey you have got to get youself one of these!

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/h3d/

you dont need to touch the (gag gag retch gag) tick, just slide the incredibly cheapy plastic rubbishy looking hook under the tick and twist the handle slowly. out it comes waving its legs (gag gag) at you.

they look like the most useless thing in the universe but i will never be without one ever again!

[sandra s.]

That's exactly what I meant by "tick hooks"! They're really, really good.

[donna frankland (uk)]

great minds eh?

[sandra s.]

Exactly But I think you do need to touch the tick to get it out of there, since they get stuck really tight!

Or, depending on your personal tick gag factor, you could have a pair of tweezers ready.

[donna frankland (uk)]

i scrape them of with a bit of card or something, there is no way on this earth that i am going to touch one. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!

i got brought a baby swift last year as i have 'sucker, bring all abandoned baby birds to me' on my forehead. i let it cling to my jumper as they need to be kept perching vertically. then got on the phone to the wildlife rehab people. i looked down and saw my chest covered in huge shiny grey bird ticks. ick ick ick ick ick *shudders* the poor thing spent the next hour hanging on my curtains whilst i waited for the rest to drop off.

i think i'm going to be sick, bleerrgh!

[painted_ponies]

ROTFLOL.

 

But please, please, just use Frontline. It will work, all by itself. I'd be afraid of bad interactions using anything else with it.

 

Don't worry, if ticks could easily kill you, no South Carolina child would ever reach adulthood and we'd all be extinct down here by now.

[Meg's mum]

When I lived back East we used to hold a lit cigarette (I was a smoker then) to the body of the creature and it would let go. The risk of not doing that was always that the head would end up separating from the body and cause an infection.

[Tammy525]

Here's to all housecleaning dh's everywhere!

I would also be hesitant to use a lot of different things. Frontline has worked well for us.

[Lunar]

I think Frontline and K9 Advantix both work really well for preventing ticks. Advantix worked great for Zeeke. (But not safe for cats.) That alone should do it. I really don't like any kind of flea collars, I don't like all those chemicals being where I touch it every day, and I always saw cats with flea collars on... with fleas.

 

I admit when we first got Zeeke and he'd come in with ticks on him I'd just pull them out with my fingernails. I read later you aren't supposed to do that, but eh. It worked.

[Woodenlion]

that one had me falling out of my chair with laughter. But everyone is right, please don't kill your dog by over treating due to your fear of ticks. I have never had to deal with ticks but I can guarantee there would be quite a bit of screaming, disgusting things, yick. I'll take a clone of your husband also. Someone who cleans in a crisis. That's priceless!

Toni

[karrie]

Just had our first ticks since leaving Ga. The dogs picked them up at the State Park when we were camping. I found them on Sam took them off using my nails. Trick is don't just yank them out pull slowly but firmly. Tweezers can squash them so be easy with those. I got treatment for both dogs. I got vet tech to help get under Sam's undercoat. Dh decided to just check Libby. He didnt' find any but a week later there was a fat grouged one one her face. GRRRR. I got it off for her and found another albut still flat one and got it off. At that point dh had no choice but to help me hold Libby still while I put Frontline Plus on her too. GRRRR silly man. The grouged ones bug me. I'm always afraid I will pop the sucker. Oh and those 2 died a horrid death Death by matches and for the grouged one it took longer so it died in a candle fire.

 

Oh dh's reasoning was Sam's hair is longer and they didn't always walk together. Now ya'll know why I handle all the animal care around here.

[Mona Howard]

Ticks are a fact of life on our place.

The pastures we are putting in are on freshly cleared woodland that was prime deer habitat.

My dogs never seem to get the ticks as I keep the

preventative on them. Strangly the sheep never have them and they have no preventative. I wonder about this. I ususally pick up at least two or three a summer. I pluck them out with tweezers and then drop them into rubbing alcohol in a sandwich baggie then give them a toss. I usually end up with an itchy red bump that lasts a week or two. I watch for lyme rash too but so far--so lucky. Mona

[Carson Crazies]

I'm laughing but I'm not laughing. After last years NC picnic I found my first ever tick on me.

 

I found it while in my birthday suit, and ran screaching through the house... I came to a stop in front of my husband, and was jumping up and down yelling "get it off, ohmygodohmygod its on me getitoffgetitoff please please please!!!". Needless to say he was disappointed that all I wanted was this abomination to release its death grip upon my hip. I was actually pretty horrified, as I'd never had a tick attach to me before.

 

Ugh, now I need to go take another shower. Just thinking about them makes me itch all over.

 

As for removal,

 

Retrieved from http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic584.htm , it says:

 

>>Tick removal is best accomplished by grabbing the tick as close to the skin as possible with a very fine forceps and pulling it gradually, but firmly, out from the skin. Gloves should be worn when removing ticks, and the bite site should be thoroughly disinfected with alcohol or another skin antiseptic solution. Care should be taken to avoid squeezing the tick during removal, since squeezing may inject infectious material into the skin. Use of gasoline, petroleum, and other organic solvents to suffocate ticks, as well as burning the tick with a match, should be avoided. Often, the complete mouthparts do not come out with the rest of the tick. Leaving these in does not increase the risk of disease transmission, but they may cause a local infection or foreign body reaction.

[juliepoudrier]

Originally posted by Mona Howard:

Strangly the sheep never have them and they have no preventative.

Mona,

When John Clouse was shearing my sheep he commented that he was seeing a lot of ticks on sheep this year. Earlier this week, I was trimming hooves and vaccinating the ones at my house and found ticks on one. I helped a friend with banding, tattooing, etc. over the weekend, and we also found ticks on one of her sheep. In both instances, the ticks were in the armpit area. So don't be too sure your sheep aren't getting them....

 

J.

[smileyzookie]

Originally posted by Carson Crazies:

Ugh, now I need to go take another shower. Just thinking about them makes me itch all over.

I can sympathize on that one. I swear, every time I feel my hair move from wind or just normal movement, Im convinced I have ticks. Or the dog brushes my leg, or I see a brown speck its a tick! .... Im literally getting paranoid. YIKES

[sandra s.]

I'm like that, too . They don't actually gross me out that much, I can touch them and everything, but whenever I see one (or read this thread! *scratch*) I can feel at least one or two crawling around on me. Of course it's just my own hair tickling my ears and stuff like that, but still...*scratch*.

[Sorienew]

I used Frontline on both my dogs when we went to Ks.,Okla, Ark. and N.M. and the Border Collie still got ticks. The Corgi didn't!

Go figure.