Dogs always love to explore the world around them and go on different adventures. Well, as much as it sounds exciting, it may have a lot of downsides too.
You may notice your dog coming home after a walk from the park and constantly itching all over its body. The possible cause can be the presence of ticks on your dog’s body, hidden inside its fur.
The presence of dried dead ticks on dogs may not be as harmful as the presence of live ticks is. The main thing is that you need to remove ticks from your dog’s body as soon as you notice them; if not removed, they may cause harm to your dog by causing excess itching, redness, swelling, bumps, etc.
The structure of the tick’s mouth is such that it tends to hold onto the dog’s skin even if it is dead. So when you look out for ticks on dogs, make sure to remove the dried or live ticks immediately.
Here, we will discuss the harmful effects dead dried ticks have on your dog and how you can easily remove them. Along with that, there is information on some remedies and other topics concerning dry ticks in dogs.
How to Identify Ticks on Your Dog?
Dog owners should be aware of how a tick looks. Some people try to pull out moles, nipples, and tags from a dog’s skin by considering those as ticks.
To remove and identify ticks properly, use a magnifying glass; experts highly recommend using a magnifying glass. Using a magnifying glass, you will be able to recognize the tick’s structure carefully.
You can find ticks anywhere on a dog’s body, but mostly in those areas where your dog least moves. Common sites to notice ticks on a dog’s body can be the fur, head, folds of skin, and others.
Before removing ticks, let’s discuss the structure of a tick living on a dog’s body.
- Ticks usually vary in size from 1 mm to 10 mm. It appears as a hard bump on the skin of your dog.
- The tick growing on your dog’s body can have between 6 and 8 legs.
- Usually, all the ticks are brown or black colored.
- When ticks overfeed on a dog’s blood, their shape and size grow as large as a piece of grape.
- Contrary to people’s beliefs, ticks don’t jump on dogs’ bodies. Ticks can only crawl and can’t jump on the dog.
- When ticks suck blood from a dog’s body, their color changes from brown to greyish white.
The Process of Removing a Dead Tick from a Dog’s Body
Removing dried and dead ticks from your canine’s body is the same as removing live ticks but a little easier. If you once knew how to remove live ticks from a dog’s body, removing dead ticks is pretty easy.
As discussed above, dead ticks are not as dangerous for your dog as live ticks can prove to be. But still, if dried ticks remain embedded in your canines for a long time, it can cause itchiness, inflammation, and severe swellings.
However, there are certain steps you need to follow before removing ticks from your dog’s body. Some veterinarian-suggested steps are below to remove dead ticks from a dog’s body.
#1. Find the Dead Tick on Your Dog’s Body
Dead, dried ticks can be found anywhere on a dog’s body. Paws, neck, mouth, and ears are the main locations where you can locate them. However, if your dog has thick fur, it will be difficult for you to locate dead ticks. There are certain specifications you should look for before deciding the bump on your dog’s body is a tick, and nothing else. Here are some features of dead ticks.
- Ticks form small yet hard bumps of varying sizes, but usually up to 1 cm.
- It can be either black or brown.
- Depending upon the life stage of the tick, it can have either six legs or eight legs.
- If you notice white silver ticks, they feed on dogs and get loaded with dogs’ blood.
#2. Removing Dried Dead Tick from a Dog’s Body With Tweezers of Appropriate Size
Before removing ticks from your dog’s body, you need to wear sanitized gloves. As it is obvious that ticks in a dog’s body stick tightly with their mouth, you need to set aside the fur before removing the tick from the dog’s body.
To remove ticks, siding the furs is necessary, and for that, you need to use your hands. Wear proper gloves and then go for the removal process. Again, you can get help from someone around you.
There are certain specifications for the tweezers you use for removing ticks. Use pointed tweezers so that they can remove the tick easily.
Go close to your dog’s skin as much as you can with the tweezers. Then, with the help of tweezers, firmly grip the tick’s body.
After gripping it, slowly apply pressure and remove the tick from the dog’s body. Be careful and keep your hand steady while removing it, as twisting and turning may lead to a burst out of the tick’s stomach, which will release toxins, bacteria, and viruses into the dog’s body.
Be patient while removing ticks from the dog’s body as it may take some time, perhaps 1 to 2 minutes. Twisting or pulling the tick too hard can be dangerous.
While removing the tick, the head can get stuck in the dog’s skin as ticks tend to stick to the dog’s body with the use of their heads firmly. After removing the tick once, you can again go for removing the head from the dog’s body if it remains stuck there, but make sure not to use bare hands for the same as it can be extremely unhygienic.
If some part of your dog’s skin comes out while removing a tick, there is no need to worry. Be patient and apply ointment daily; it will heal after some time. The hard bump will take some time to decrease from your dog’s body.
#3. Don’t Wiggle the Dried Tick Left or Right While Removing it
Ticks tend to attach to the dog’s body firmly. It will take some time to remove the tick from the dog’s body, but it can be more dangerous if it is removed by wiggling. The reason is that wiggling increases the likelihood of their stomach bursting. Still, it also increases the likelihood that the head part will be left inside the dog’s skin, causing additional problems for your dog.
When you tend to wiggle the tick, it will release a large amount of saliva, which enters the dog’s blood and causes him to have viral or bacterial infections.
#4. Removal of Tick’s Head
You can try to remove the tick’s head part from the dog’s skin if it gets separated from the tick’s body and gets embedded in the dog’s skin, but if the process is painful for your dog, leave it as it is.
Your dog will eventually develop a mechanism to eject the head from its body, but if you keep scratching that area, it may cause redness, swelling, inflammation, and other symptoms.
#5. Don’t Use Soaps or Nail Polish for Removing Ticks
It is a weird myth among people to remove ticks from a dog’s body using petroleum jelly. It is easy soap, nail polish, or other things, but it is not like that. So it would be best if you were careful not to use petroleum jelly and other things.
The substances mentioned above contain chemicals that can lead the ticks to vomit out the toxins in the dog’s body, which is harmful.
If you feel that removing a dog’s body is troublesome and can’t be done by you, then immediately visit the veterinarian and take help from them for the same. Vets are very aware of the diseases and conditions your dog goes through.
#6. Clean the Area After Tick Removal
Once you remove the tick from the dog’s body, clean that infected area. Use soap, alcohol, and water to wash the areas. Cleaning will not let any viral or bacterial infection spread into the dog’s body.
Also Read: Can You Wash A Dog With Dish Soap?
#7. Carefully Dispose of the Removed Tick
Whenever you remove dried or live ticks from a dog’s body, dispose of the removed ticks properly. If you don’t dispose of ticks, there are high chances that your dog may get infected by ticks again.
Once you remove a tick from a dog’s body, wrap it into a damp towel, add it into a container or zip-lock bag, and store it in the fridge. Follow this process when you want the tick to be alive to take it to the dog’s veterinarian to learn about the ticks and infections it may have spread on your dog.
Besides this, you can also put the dried dead tick into a container filled with isopropyl solution. Whether you have removed live or dead ticks from the dog’s body, it is necessary to dispose of them properly.
Don’t drain ticks into toilets as they don’t die in water but will manifest themselves in new areas on new animals they will find. So, be careful with it.
After tick removal, visiting the dog’s veterinarian and having a proper check-up on your dog is necessary.
Specifications of Dead Ticks
Before removing ticks from a dog’s body, you should know whether the tick is alive or dead. However, it doesn’t matter whether they are alive or dead; you should immediately remove ticks from the dog’s body. Here are the points that will help you identify whether the tick on your dog’s body is dead or alive.
1. Legs Position
In the case of live ticks, their legs will be spread out away towards the sides, whereas for dead ticks, their legs will be rigid and curled up together.
2. Movement of Their Legs
You can use a magnifying glass to check the movement of ticks’ legs. However, as their legs are small, you will find it difficult to notice the legs and their movements with your naked eyes.
If you find any movement in their legs, it means ticks are alive and sucking the dog’s blood; otherwise, they can be considered dead.
Also Read: Why Does My Dog Lay On My Legs? (7 Possible Reasons )
3. Color Identification
Ticks will change color from black to whitish silver if they haven’t fed on your dog’s blood.
4. Tick’s body
Tick’s body is easy to remove when a person touches it as it is holding on to the dog’s body just by its mouth, but you can notice that the tick’s body feels hard shell but soft when touched. Avoid touching it with bare hands as it may cause infections.
Remember while removing the ticks that you are not mistaking the same with any mole or nipples present on the dog’s body.
Why is it Necessary to Remove Dead Ticks from a Dog’s Body?
Dead ticks can be less harmful to dogs than live ticks, but removing them from your dog’s body is necessary.
There can be several diseases, infections, or other conditions that your dog can develop if dead ticks are left embedded on your dog’s skin.
Dead ticks can cause your dog irritation and swelling. Not only that, but you can also notice inflammation of the skin where dead ticks are embedded. Besides, it is not pleasant for your eyes to see ticks on your dog’s skin now and then.
Have You Found a Tick on Your Dog? What to do Now?
Dogs are adventurous creatures and tend to roam here and there. They are bound to get some ticks and other parasites on their bodies.
Well, many owners claim to see ticks on their dogs’ bodies. Contrary to what we think, ticks on a dog’s body are not very dangerous, but you need to remove them soon as letting them reside on your dog’s body can be harmful for a long time.
You don’t need to panic after seeing a tick on your dog’s body. Firstly, identify the creature as a tick and be sure that it is not any tag or mole on your dog. After that, you can remove it simply by using tweezers. The tick on a dog’s body can be alive or dead. You should be able to identify ticks as being alive or dead and then follow the removal procedures accordingly. Removing live ticks can be more tricky and difficult.
If you do not know how exactly the ticks on your dog look, then Google it and find some pictures. There are various pictures available to you on the internet. Whenever you remove ticks from a dog’s body, sanitize that area. You can use alcohol, soap, and water. Besides this, use isopropyl; it won’t let any infection into the dog’s body. Cleaning the affected part is necessary as the tick may carry numerous bacteria and viruses.
Further, make sure to conduct a regular examination of your dog for residuary ticks. Examine your dog’s skin twice or thrice a week to check for ticks. When your dog comes back from a walk or a play, or any adventure; don’t forget to check its body for ticks – either dried or alive.
Dogs’ ears, necks, paws, and creases in their legs are some of the areas where you can check for ticks regularly.
Is it Possible for Ticks to Get Dried on a Dog’s Body?
Yes, ticks can die on a dog’s body on its own, and there can be numerous reasons behind the same.
If your dog wears a flea collar or carries some other anti-tick application, the ticks may get dried on its body.
When ticks bite the dog, your dog gets irritated. As soon as a dog feels irritated, it tends to scratch, itch, or bite that area with paws or teeth. Itching or biting can result in ticks dying on a dog’s body. In addition, your dog may be on some oral anti-tick medication, and whenever a tick bites your dog as a result of the anti-tick medication, they immediately die.
Once a tick feeds off a dog’s blood, its mouth gets locked on the dog’s body. As ticks die due to any mechanism such as the mouth lock mechanism, their mouth gets locked up on the dog’s body itself, ticks start dehydrating and shrinking, but due to the mouth part attached to the dog’s body, they remain stuck there. Therefore, they notice ticks on the dog’s bodies even when they die.
Why are Dead Ticks Still Stuck on a Dog’s Body?
It is not necessary that the tick stuck on your dog’s body is always alive; it can be dead too. However, it would help recognize the difference between the dried and the live tick.
Ticks are small parasites sticking to your dog’s body, and they tend to suck blood from them. However, it takes a few days for ticks to suck enough blood to be capable of reproducing. Once they have fed themselves up, they change color. Either they live on the same dog after reproduction or fall off.
However, if a tick sucks the blood from a dog’s body, the dog will scratch or snap over that area. Ticks are present at the time when a dog scratch or snaps, and as the ticks are attached to the dog’s body with their mouth, they will not move. Ticks die and dry in the same place only from where they have been sucking blood.
It is alright if you notice dry ticks. There can be many reasons for them sticking there, but the main thing is that it is necessary to remove dried ticks as soon as possible. Not only that, the same area should be washed and disinfected immediately after the removal of ticks.
How Should You Remove a Tick from a Dog’s Body?
Whenever Pet owners notice ticks on their dog’s body, they panic. Removal of ticks as soon as they get noticed is necessary as they may cause harm and mess if not properly handled.
Handling and removing dried ticks is much easier than dealing with live ticks. The main problem is that when they try to remove live ticks from a dog’s body, they tend to stick their mouth on the dog’s skin more tightly. As a result, the tick bite results in the release of more harmful bacteria into the dog’s bloodstream through the tick’s saliva, resulting in infection and numerous diseases in dogs.
The other problem is when a person handles a live tick, which tends to move. Due to movement, they get turned and twisted. And in the same process, the tick’s stomach can be hurt or, in the worst case, burst out if it releases several bacteria on the dog’s skin, resulting in bacterial and other infections in dogs.
The process of removal of dried and live ticks from dogs is the same; it’s just that in the case of live ticks, owners need to be more careful while handling them so that they don’t cause harm to the dog.
Harmful Effects of Not Removing Ticks from a Dog’s Body
Bacteria and viruses are present in ticks’ bodies. There is nothing to worry about if the head remains embedded in your dog’s body. The only thing is that you have to apply ointment over that infected area for quick healing.
If you notice that part is red, irritated, or inflamed, this can be due to the dog’s body reaction towards the foreign objects. Not only this, but for the same reason, you may notice some pus formation over that area too.
You can apply a thin layer of ointments like betadine and Neosporin so that your dog may heal quickly. Then, make an appointment with the dog’s vet immediately.
Skin Condition Following Tick Removal from Dog’s Body
It is normal to notice scabs, redness, or bumps on your dog’s skin after the tick’s removal.
Whenever you remove a tick from a dog’s body, the tick tends to hold the dog skin-tight with its mouth and bite there multiple times. Tick’s bite can lead to scabs or bumps on the dog’s body after the tick’s removal.
The scab and bumps will go away slowly with time, but you can use ointments on that area for quick healing.
In many cases, you may not need to go to the veterinarian, but if the situation turns out to be worse, it is advisable to visit the vet immediately. It would be beneficial if you could note the time and day along with the tick removal method to mention the record to your dog’s vet, and it can help the vet treat the dog properly.
Final Words
It would be best to be very careful while removing dried and live ticks from your dog’s body. It can be tricky, but the guidance and tools can help you with this process.
If you feel it to be difficult, immediately consult the vet. Be careful and patient while removing the tick from the dog’s body. If you do not remove a tick from your dog’s body for more than 24 hours, it can cause many tick-borne diseases. Be careful with this, and keep checking your dog regularly for ticks.
Experts recommend the use of appropriate tools for ticks removal. After the removal of ticks, proper disposal is very necessary.
When you remove ticks from a dog’s body, please don’t believe in myths about using nail polishes or petroleum jelly; it can be dangerous. Also, don’t ever use your hands while removing ticks from your dog’s body as it’s unhygienic.
