H-E-L-P Ticks!!! - Page 1

I pull 5 to 6 ticks off my pup every single day. I have never seen a tick season like this here in New England.  I tried frontline. I tried K9Advantix. I just added a flea and tick collar to her.  They still are attching to her..especially the deer ticks and they are hard to see since she is black and they are tiny.  They attach mostly around her head.

I read the thread about the Seiger dogs dying (my condolences) and bought her a preventic collar as that was mentioned. However, I never put it on and bought a different brand as the back label scared me: toxic to humans; toxic to animals; if ingested give blank amount of this drug; don't let children near it; known to cause cancer, etc....So, since I have a 4 year old child in the house I opted for one a bit less mild.

I honestly don't know what else to do. My vet said the lyme vaccine is not really that effective?

Any suggestions? We live on a 51 acre farm so she is always running the fields and we hike in the woods several times a week.....

Why are they still attaching and staying stuck??  I never had this problem with any of my previous dogs. *sigh*

Recent discussion:

http://www.workingdogforum.com/vBulletin/f25/i-hate-ticks-need-advice-22148/

Koach, thanks for link!  However, unfortunately, it won't come up for me.  The page comes up but none of the responses..weird.

Hi Smiley!

Take some apple cider vinegar and rub it on her head, and body if need be, sort of like tossing a salad.

If a tick is on your dog attached, you take you fore finger and in a circular motion rub and rub the ticks behind, it has to be in a clockwork motion, the tick will get annoyed and back itself out!

I saw it on a youtube video, but can't find it, but just be patient, take your finger and rub the ticks behind in a clockwork motion, they HATE it!
Works everytime for me!

    Good luck,
      Paula

Do you have any guineas? I swear by them. Ugly bird, but they are great insect eaters, and LOVE ticks! Ohio also had a bad tick year, due to the wet spring I guess. Anyway, we had a flock of 14 all summer and nary a tick to be found. We only have lost 1 just recently, probably to a hawk. People 3-4 houses away from us were complaining about ticks, but we only found 1 on one of the horses, and one on my daughter's pants..... when she came home from visiting her BFF.

The guinea do well free range, but should be kept penned up until they are at least half grown. If you get mature birds, keep them penned for a couple of weeks before turning them out.  We had a 'bad guinea year' a few years back. Stupid birds kept going acroos the street, and didn't look both ways. Lost the flock. Started finding ticks on the dogs and barn cats. We went for 2 years no guineas, and had ticks. We got more this year and no more ticks.

Won't do much for this year, but could help for next year.  BTW, they also make great 'watch birds', anything strange comes around and they sure make the racket!

-Sue

Thanks, guys!!  I will try both!  I will look into the guineas for next year.... :-)

I second the apple cider vinegar. 

Rub Diatomaceous earth into the fur. 

Here is a link to where I get it.  It is good for a lot of different things.  I feed it to my
dogs as well.

http://wolfcreekranch1.tripod.com/defaq.html

I have the problem in the springtime but spray the tall grass and weeds at the edge of the fields around the property lines with malathion. This curbs the problem for me. Advantix always works for me but I seem to only have the common brown dog ticks too so the Deer tick may pose a different problem all its own as far as resistance to chemicals. 

You might try putting Seven dust on, I know several breeders that put it on hunting dogs to keeps the ticks away. Never tried it myself.

 

We alternate Frontline with K9-Advantix from one month to the next, the liquid treatments, not the collars. Our dogs play hard with each other and we don't want the chance of them chewing up one of those collars. Besides, we've never found them to be very effective on GSDs. When we go into areas with tall grass and brush we add a spray or two of Zodiac to their coats.

Ticks crawl upward which is why you find them on your pup's head. You could try this: put on a pair of rubber or latez gloves, spray some Zodiac into your hands and brush them over the dog's face and head. Before you come back inside after a woodlands kike, wipe her down with a damp towel. This may pick up ticks crawling on her coat and prevent them from jumping on you. We also use Zodiac on ourselves, spraying it on shoes and pants legs before heading out.

Kudos for doing tick checks daily! Ticks need to be attached for 24 - 48 hours to transfer disease causing agents. While we do occasionally find an atached tick on our dogs they're always dead (the ticks, not the dogs), poisoned by the spot-on treatment.

We don't vaccinate against Lyme disease. The vaccination has to be repeated every 6 months; it will give a false positive reading on blood tests and require a more extensive and expensive test subsequent to vaccination.