How To Remove A Tick From A Dog

Writen by Mary Casey

Your dog comes in from a romp in the woods and settles down on your lap for a belly rub when you feel gasp a bump on your dog's soft fur. When you look closer you find the bane of many a dog and dog owner's life the tick.

Male brown dog ticks and nonengorged female ticks are flat and brown. Deer ticks are tiny; you can barely see them if they haven't had their 'drink' yet. As the female ticks fill up on your dog's blood they start to look like gray beans about a quarter inch long. They have four small legs on each side near their mouth. The deer tick is know to carry Lyme disease and can be harder to find than the dog tick because it is so small.

How do you safely remove the tick? First you need the right tools, then you need a steady hand. First, get yourself a fine-tipped tweezers or you can use one of the new tick removal instruments they sell at your local pet supply superstore. The new instruments let you remove the tick without squeezing the tick's body so you don't introduce harmful bacteria from the tick into your dog's bloodstream.

1. First, grab the tick by the head or the mouth parts right where they enter the skin. This can be hard if the tick isn't engorged with blood. Don't grab the tick by the body.

2. Now you have a firm hold on the tick's head. Pull firmly back and out in a straight motion. Don't twist the tick as you are pulling it out.

3. Look at the ugly thing wriggling around in your tweezers. Then stick it in a jar of alcohol to kill it. Ticks don't die when you flush them down the toilet.

4. Just in case some bacteria were released during the tick removal, dab your dog's skin with a disinfectant ointment.

5. Wash your hands too.

Some old wive's tales about tick removal are not effective, and can be dangerous. Do not burn the tick with a hot match, you could burn your dog, or you. Sticking petroleum jelly on the tick, or dabbing it with alcohol won't work either. You need to pull out the tick with the tweezers.

What happens if part of the tick's head stays in your dog? Don't panic. Your dog's skin will inflame and break the pieces with time. Sometimes your dog's skin will react after you pull out a tick because the tick's saliva can be irritating to the dog. You may notice swelling or even a scar with a hairless area after you remove the tick. You could use some hydrocortisone cream to help if the skin looks really irritated, but it will calm down naturally, with time.

Of course, the best thing to do is prevent ticks from biting your dog in the first place. Use anti- tick medicine as prescribed by your vet and keep your dog out of high grasses and leaves. Remember, you need the right tools and a steady hand to win the war against the tick.

Important: Please consult your own vet or pet professional before using any advice!

Mary Casey is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.

This article has been submitted in affiliation with http://www.PetLovers.Com/ which is a site for Pet Forums.

One Of The Benefits Of Using Recoverypetscom

Writen by T.B. Collins

One of the benefits of registering your pet with a pet recovery service is that in the event your pet should ever become lost, the finder can get information to contact the owner.

The main drawback to many of these services is that they use the information currently located on the pet tag to register the pet, and by doing this, the finder of the pet does not have a place to go to view the owners contact information.

Now these services are all right for rural communities that may have one veterinarian, and everyone practically knows each other, but they are not suited to medium or large metropolitan areas.

In these areas the chance of a pet being recovered decrease because it is an ever evolving society, and constantly growing. To take advantage of the benefits provided by a registration service in these areas, the registrar's information has to be visible on the pet tag. One such company that provides a pet tag with its web address on the tag is RecoveryPets.com, and also on the tag is the unique registration number the pet receives when it is registered.

One of the major benefits of this type of registration is that no matter who find the lost pet, they will know exactly where to go to find the owners contact information. And, the RecoveryPets.Com website is designed to be simple to navigate, so that the finder can quickly retrieve the pet owners contact information. To view their site and see how simple it is to navigate visit them at: http://www.recoverypets.com

Thaddeus Collins is the owner of RecoveryPets.Com a company that specializes in the global recovery of lost pets using a unique tracking number that is registered on the companies website, and can be searched if the pet becomes lost. For more information visit http://www.recoverypets.com

Dogs And Medications How To Give Tablets To Your Dog

Writen by Brigitte Smith

Does your dog mind taking tablets?

I don't know why it is, but medicines for both humans and our pets usually taste bitter or otherwise revolting. And dogs are notoriously suspicious when it comes to being asked to take tablets of any description. Remember, your dog has an acute sense of smell! It's difficult indeed to persuade the average pooch to swallow any medication designed to cure any illness, disease or disability from which he/she is suffering. Your poor dog doesn't understand that you're trying to assist him/her. No, they invariably view such treatments with utter contempt and disdain.

My Rottweiler, Kara, is actually not too bad with tablets. Mostly I can easily prise her mouth open, drop the medication onto the back of her tongue and then hold her mouth closed for a few seconds, and she'll generally swallow it without too much fuss. Or if it's a really nasty tasting one, a lump of peanut butter around the tablet will generally do the trick quite nicely.

Not so my Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Jet. Oh no. Fortunately Jet has been surprisingly illness-free during her 10 years. I can only hope this picture of health phenomenon will continue for the remainder of her days. Because on the odd occasion when I do need to have her swallow anything faintly resembling a tablet, oh my goodness, what a fuss.

I dread giving tablets - medication and vitamins alike. You'd think that she'd know by now that I wasn't trying to poison her. But no. She runs away and cowers in a corner, slipping deftly away whenever I get close. And when I do catch her, and throw the tablet into her mouth you'd think Jet's life depended upon her making every conceivable attempt to spit the tablet out. Peanut butter? Forget it - she just licks it all off and spits the tablet out. Tasty cheese? Same thing. Crushing it up and mixing it in with her scrambled eggs/tinned tuna/canned dog food? Not a chance. Up goes her nose and away she trots.

So the only option is to hold that mouth closed until the tablet disintegrates, because oh my goodness, Jet is absolutely determined not to swallow. It takes several minutes of hanging on tight to her mouth and keeping it closed while she pushes her tongue out between the little gaps in her teeth over and over again making every possible attempt to disgorge the offending tablet, and when that fails, she simply froths at the mouth. And froths and froths and froths until I think she's almost going to suffocate. And when it's all over, she refuses to have anything to do with me (for at least 10 minutes until the terrible memory of it fades!)

I suppose I should count my lucky stars that one of my dogs is a pushover with the dreaded tablet taking scenario!

(c) 2005, Brigitte Smith, Healthy Happy Dogs

Brigitte Smith is a dog lover with a special interest in holistic dog health.

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