Ticks In SW Ontario

[DTrain]

We just moved from the west to the east where there seems to be a long list of potential problems for our dogs they have never been exposed to before according to our new vet. We inquired about ticks and were told not to worry about them and apply a tick medication after May 15. I found a tick on our youngest dog in April. Our vet gave us Revolution, do you know anything about this product AND, what is your best method for searching for ticks on your dog. Thanks, this would be very helpful, we are very nervous about ticks.

[kaos]

Hi DTrain

 

I have lived in Ontario all my life and have yet to encounter a tick on one of my dogs or myself for that matter. I'm sure they are out there but we just dose during the necessary months and keep an eye out for them on the girls. Welcome to the region.

Sara

[DTrain]

Hi DTrain

 

I have lived in Ontario all my life and have yet to encounter a tick on one of my dogs or myself for that matter. I'm sure they are out there but we just dose during the necessary months and keep an eye out for them on the girls. Welcome to the region.

Sara

 

Hi, Thanks we are looking foward. Even our vet told us not to be very concerned with ticks, he was a little surprised. I am a little surprised at how much damaged it caused, The dog has an open wound which we are treating and he is on Anti's. This makes me nervous, he is the future of our BC stock. Do you use Revolution. Thanks, Dave

[Cynthia P]

Hi, Thanks we are looking foward. Even our vet told us not to be very concerned with ticks, he was a little surprised. I am a little surprised at how much damaged it caused, The dog has an open wound which we are treating and he is on Anti's. This makes me nervous, he is the future of our BC stock. Do you use Revolution. Thanks, Dave

 

Dave,

 

ticks are still not that common in Ontario with the exception of the Windsor/Chatham area. More have started to show up there. WE have lived in Ontario with dogs for 14 years and I think i have encountered one or two ticks. We don't use any flea or tick medication for them. Now in Pennsylvania, there are massive amounts of ticks...panicked me when we first moved down there.

 

My vet tech friend uses Advantage Plus (I think) for fleas, ticks and heartworm. I've heard of Revolultion but certainly haven't tried it and can't make any comments on it.

 

Cynthia

[DTrain]

Dave,

 

ticks are still not that common in Ontario with the exception of the Windsor/Chatham area. More have started to show up there. WE have lived in Ontario with dogs for 14 years and I think i have encountered one or two ticks. We don't use any flea or tick medication for them. Now in Pennsylvania, there are massive amounts of ticks...panicked me when we first moved down there.

 

My vet tech friend uses Advantage Plus (I think) for fleas, ticks and heartworm. I've heard of Revolultion but certainly haven't tried it and can't make any comments on it.

 

Cynthia

 

Thanks Cynthia, more help please. We are well north of Windsor and NE of Toronto but we did some work in the London area. We have not been that far south with the dogs although we may in the future. I have little time but I have been looking for BC clubs, trainers, agility or just some contact with other BC people. Can you direct. Thanks, Dave.

[trailrider]

Half an hour ago, I found a tick in the ear of one of my dogs. First time in many years, and with many dogs. Very first time in 30 years.I tried to look at it for ID on the microscope, but now I need a picture of them in southern ontario regions.

[mbc1963]

I live in tick central - NE Massachusetts. We have signs everywhere about tick danger, and pictures training us how to tell a dog tick from a deer tick. But... we don't worry too much about them. It's one of those things you learn to live with. Dogs here who aren't dosed with something tend to pick up ticks. My dog, undosed, picks up a lot and had Lyme disease shortly after I adopted him. Other people's dogs, with very short, close coats, tend to get fewer ticks, and the ticks are easier to find when they appear.

 

I dose with K9 Advantix, which seems to keep ticks off my dog entirely for periods of up to 7 weeks. Honestly, I never find ticks on him, and we're in the woods every single day. As for myself, I have had two, maybe three ticks on me in my entire lifetime. If you stay on trails and don't run through brush too much, they tend to miss you.

 

Good luck.

 

Mary

[DTrain]

Thanks everyone, this tick situation has me very upset. My BC's our rough, I even have a bearded male. It is very difficult to search them and I don't want to miss anything. Where do you look for ticks on your dogs, please tell me the areas that ticks frequent most and , how do you remove them. I bought a tool from the Vet who was the same Vet who told me that we have very few ticks in our area and not to worry about them. I plan to have a few words with him. I am like you, my dogs are valuable, they are working dogs and it takes me almost 3 years to properly train a dog. Thanks for your help.

[DTrain]

Half an hour ago, I found a tick in the ear of one of my dogs. First time in many years, and with many dogs. Very first time in 30 years.I tried to look at it for ID on the microscope, but now I need a picture of them in southern ontario regions.

 

Trailrider, what areas are you looking for, I will try to narrow it down for you, I am researching now. Thanks.

[trailrider]

I ws just trying to identify the tick I found. It looks like a picture I have of a sheep ked. After I squished it between 2 slides to look at it with the microscope.

[silhouettestable]

I have some tick info from my wildlife pathology and parasitology class from back in college. I'll scan it and upload, hopefully it will come through clearly. I could just type in the info, but you won't get the pictures that way. Hopefully the printed part comes through clearly if I scan it.

[silhouettestable]

Okay, hopefully this works. The one that you have to worry about carrying Lyme disease is the deer tick, Ixodes dammini If these images and text are too unclear and you want to look up more info on any of these tick species, you should be able to find it by searching for them by scientific name. The others are: Dermacentor variabilis (wood tick), Dermacentor albipictus (moose tick), Rhipicephalus sanguineus (red tick or dog tick), Argas persicus (soft tick of galliformes)

 

 

 

DTrain - I'm also NE of Toronto, about 2 1/2 hours. I've never had a problem with ticks on my dogs (ever, fingers crossed). Once though (years ago) at a place I boarded a horse she picked up a couple of ticks.

[mbc1963]

My BC's our rough, I even have a bearded male. It is very difficult to search them and I don't want to miss anything. Where do you look for ticks on your dogs, please tell me the areas that ticks frequent most and , how do you remove them.

 

The very most common place to find ticks is in the face/ear/neck/shoulders area. I think the ticks end up there, because if they are elsewhere, the dog can pick them off with its mouth. Also, I think this is the "front end," where the dog is most likely to brush up against leaves when running. So, I would focus your searches from the top of his head down over his neck, chest, upper back region. Check everywhere else (butt, tummy) too, but most of the many, many ticks I've pulled off dogs have been in that front end. My childhood bad boy dog used to run off for days, and come home COVERED in big, swollen, silver ticks the size of dimes. Most of them would be right around his ears and under his collar. You can do a pretty good search by loving your dogs up a lot when they come in from outside. I know that the season my dog caught Lyme, I would pull upwards of 20 tiny ticks off his chest area when we came out of the woods.

 

To get ticks out, we've never done anything very fancy: just grasped the tick as close to the skin as we could get, and give a quick "yoink" tug. When I was a kid, we had all kinds of wives' tales about using gasoline, putting a hot match on the tick, etc., but a quick tug seems to do the trick. Tweezers can help you not pull fur. I've never had a dog get an infection from the tick's head remaining in the skin, though people always repeat that warning to me. (Maybe we're just really skilled at getting the whole tick? Or maybe the tiny biting, boring part is unlikely to cause infection? Tough to say.)

 

Again, living in a very ticky place - I use K9Advantix and I literally do NOT find ticks on my dog, even in May, the tickiest month of the year. My friends who use Frontline find that the ticks around here have become immune to it. If you don't have many ticks in your area, and people aren't dosing, they may not be immune to it yet there.

 

For me, the chemical worry is smaller than the worry about side effects of Lyme disease, which is a horrible illness. Since your vet isn't worried, but you are...

 

http://www.1800petmeds.com/K9+Advantix-prod10631.html#top

 

Mary

[bcnewe2]

We live in tick central. I pick ticks as a hobby I've almost lost a dog to TBD's but he made it and after 2 years of being TBD free I almost don't freak out anymore about them.

 

I've found that if you pick the tick in the same direction that it went in, you will get the head out with the body along with the body of the tick. If you pick it "against the grain" so to speak the chances of leaving in the head attached under the skin is greater. How you tell the direction is by figuring out how the tick flips up when you run your finger over it. Find that direction and pull directly back from that.

 

Every night I "love" on my dogs (which means pet them while I'm feeling for ticks) The most frequent places I find them are on the neck, chest and front legs. I've found them everywhere but those are the places they are most likely to be. I figure it's where the grass hits the dogs while they are running though the grass or weeds.

 

It's a scary situationi but after a this long I've used to it. I am very familar with TBD symptoms and if they seem to have any I call the vet and he prescribes Doxy. I don't even have panels run, just treat them. It works for us. Recently I had a LGD that was intermitently limping on his front leg. I didn't think TBD's as it was always the same front leg. Eventually I consulted the vet, worked over the dog to find the sore spot, couldn't find any so opted to treat for TBD's and within a week the limping went away and hasn't come back. The working dogs are easier to read. Anytime they are "off" for more than a day or 2 I start watching closely.

 

Believe it or not, it's not that bad anymore. Just a way of life for us!

 

Good luck and try not to worry, if your careful and they still come down with a TBD, treat quickly with a round of Doxy and you shouldn't see any lasting effects.

 

Kristen

Living in AR the heart of tick country

[Errol]

Dave,

 

ticks are still not that common in Ontario with the exception of the Windsor/Chatham area. More have started to show up there. WE have lived in Ontario with dogs for 14 years and I think i have encountered one or two ticks. We don't use any flea or tick medication for them. Now in Pennsylvania, there are massive amounts of ticks...panicked me when we first moved down there.

 

My vet tech friend uses Advantage Plus (I think) for fleas, ticks and heartworm. I've heard of Revolultion but certainly haven't tried it and can't make any comments on it.

 

Cynthia

[Errol]

Lots of ticks in SW Ontario I get at least 1 or 2 a day after exercise in the area around Grand Bend. We use revolution both topical and spray. Be sure to get the dog vaccinated against Lymme.

[DTrain]

Lots of ticks in SW Ontario I get at least 1 or 2 a day after exercise in the area around Grand Bend. We use revolution both topical and spray. Be sure to get the dog vaccinated against Lymme.

 

Errol, tell me how well Revolution works for you. Does it repell the ticks, do the ticks still attach to the dogs etc. Lymme, I have also been told that we do not have ticks that carry Lymme. Thanks.

[Errol]

Errol, tell me how well Revolution works for you. Does it repell the ticks, do the ticks still attach to the dogs etc. Lymme, I have also been told that we do not have ticks that carry Lymme. Thanks.

[Errol]

Revolution works well, however ticks will still attach themselves to the dog but will die after a short period of time.Deer ticks that carry the lymme are a different tick but they are out there if you have a deer population in your area,hence the vaccination.Any ticks I fail to find on the dog usually show up wandering around in a close to death scenerio.