Ticks and fleas

[Janice]

The weather's nice and that always starts me thinking about tick and flea prevention. I just wondered if anyone knew of any non chemical ways of protecting against ticks. we 've never had any problems with fleas but we always seem to find ticks! I know Frontline works but I worry a bit about what's in it.

[marcella]

I'm not too sure about prevention Janice, but I'll be keen to see if anyone here has any good tips on that!
As for removing ticks, I usually soak some cotton wool in alcohol (Isopropyl or meths) and hold it on the tick for a minute or two, then remove it with tweezers.

They're not nice are they

[Deborah Hamilton]

Hi Janice. I know of a few people that use tea tree products on their dogs. Don't know if it actually works though.
May be worth a try.

[John Thomson]

A little garlic in the dog food may help....don't overdo it as garlic is in the onion family of foods which is not great for dogs. Puts off ticks though!

john

[John Thomson]

I found this video which shows a new method of tick removal......now that we are coming to 'tick season' I'd be interested to see if it actually works! If you look closely when the tick comes out you can see the hooks in the jaws


Link


So how do you do it?
Rub the tick in a circular motion and pretend you're trying to make the tick dizzy. I generally stick with one direction, clockwise. It usually takes less than a minute, so if it's not working, make sure the body of the tick is moving around. Remember you can't get dizzy unless you're actually moving in a circle, quickly. I doubt the tick actually gets dizzy, but they sure don't like something about the movement and they crawl out on their own.
_________________
John Thomson
www.cumbernaulddogtraining.co.uk

[Deborah Hamilton]