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.

Pick up your special FREE dog health report - there's lots of dog health information here, too!

Why Exotic Pets Should Not Be Banned

Writen by Jessi Clark-White

We all know how special interest groups can blow things out of proportion – like the nonexistent "Exotic Pet Crisis." If you listened to some animal rights groups, you'd think keeping exotic pets is cruel, dangerous, and even bordering on treason! Before you buy that agenda, consider that a junior high student once made a convincing case for banning dihydrogen monoxide: colorless, odorless, and tasteless, it kills thousands of people every year.

Most deaths are caused by inhalation, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Dihydrogen monoxide is also known as hydroxl acid, is the major component of acid rain, may cause severe burns, contributes to land erosion, may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes, and has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

This report was presented to 50 students, asking them what should be done about the chemical. 43 students favored banning it, 6 were undecided, and only one correctly recognized that 'dihydrogen monoxide' is actually H2O -- plain old water. How gullible are you?

Banning my cat makes about as much sense as banning yours – and the results are just as heartbreaking for pet and owner. Are you ready for the truth about the "Exotic Pet Crisis?"

• Exotic pets are not dangerous! One study showed that the risk of injury to exotic cat owners was less than the risk of injury due to a domestic dog bite. And every person who drives a motor vehicle subjects themselves and their family to a risk three times greater then does someone who owns even a large exotic cat such as a tiger.

• Most exotic pet owners are kind, intelligent people who adore their animals and take excellent care of them. We love our pets just as you love yours.

• Exotic animal bans result in beloved pets being confiscated, impounded, and usually killed. A lucky few live out their lives in cages under the care of strangers in zoos and sanctuaries. This is the dirty secret animal rights groups don't want you to know. Banning does not help animals: it kills them!

• Exotic cat ownership is already regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CITES, the Animal Welfare Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Lacey Act, more city, county, and state regulations than you can shake a stick at, as well as existing animal welfare and public safety laws that govern both exotic and domestic animals.

• "You can buy a tiger on the Internet for $100.00," research-averse activists proclaim in horror. Just try to order up a tiger online, or even a serval. You won't succeed. This urban legend has great repeatability at cocktail parties and save-the-cute-animals-from-evil-humans fundraisers, but is severely lacking in the reality department. Breeders do have web sites, but it takes much more than a click of the mouse to purchase an exotic cat.

For information on wild and exotic cats from servals to tigers as pets, visit http://www.exoticcatz.com. The site includes articles on care, behavior, housing, and legal issues as well as species profiles and photos.

This article may be reprinted in its entirety only. Permission is not granted to reproduce in edited form or to support the ending of exotic pet ownership.