Ticks are one of the animals that are attacking dogs the most lately, since they are small, they are fast and they are deadly.
A tick is an animal of the arachnid family, which is the size of the ball of a pin, also having a similar shape. This animal feeds on the blood of a host, which it literally sucks.
Ticks are poisonous, transmit diseases and live in trees and bushes, places frequented by dogs when they go for a walk. In this way, they are the most vulnerable animals to these attacks, which can even kill your dog.
These home remedies for
These animals are hard to find and we can’t always afford to go to the vet to remove any ticks. However, there are some home remedies that will allow you to get ticks off your dog and kill them for good.
This will allow you to be prepared for any situation and apply good first aid if the tick has given you a disease. The difference between acting fast or not can mean the difference between life and death.
Instructions
Learn to detect ticks:
The first thing we must learn when killing ticks is obviously to detect ticks that the dog may have. This seems obvious, but it is not. Ticks are small animals that cannot be seen with the naked eye, but can be attacking the dog in a totally silent and unpredictable way. There are mainly two ways to detect them, the first being direct observation and the second being observing unusual behaviors in your dog.
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- Examine the dog well: The first things we must learn are the usual places where ticks are usually located. These animals tend to bite almost anywhere on the dog’s body, but they have a predilection for the ears, the neck and the area of the legs. What you should do is examine the dog at least once a day for these ticks, which are like a kind of small ball that is caught in the dog’s hair. If the dog reacts aggressively when you are near the area, it is undoubtedly a tick, since he is afraid that you will hurt him and that is why he reacts that way.
- Observe unusual behavior: If we have not detected the tick, its poison can begin to affect your dog. First of all, we are going to notice how your dog is without energy and scratching a lot in the area where he has the parasite. Second, he is going to be a little feverish and swollen in the most severe cases. Ultimately, he might become paralyzed or even die if we leave him for too many days. If you find any symptoms, he removes the ticks from his body with what we will teach you later and if he is still sick, take him to the vet because he may have an infection.
Apply cider vinegar:
Apple cider vinegar is known to be one of the best home remedies that exist to kill the dreaded ticks on your dog. This vinegar is different from wine vinegar in that it is slightly less acidic, which makes it better for your dog’s skin. However, although it is not as acidic, its effect against parasites is identical, since what it does is intoxicate ticks and cause them to die, making their subsequent removal easier. In addition, the smell of apple cider vinegar will act as a repellant for new ticks, so it is also a great prevention mechanism.
Apply chamomile:
We have all taken an infusion of chamomile at some point, since its medicinal properties are known throughout the world. However, its effect against ticks is not as well known, but it is effective. If we apply a bit of chamomile with a cotton ball on top of the tick, we will be able to eliminate the ticks and, in turn, we will be able to eliminate the pain in the area. In this way, we will be able to do two things at the same time, that is, kill the animal and make it easier to extract it, and secondly, we will be able to relieve the pain of the wound by reducing its swelling. As with vinegar, its smell also repels ticks, so it really has 3 effects in one.
How to remove the tick:
Now that we have left the tick about to die, we must remove it from the animal, since, even if it is dead, its presence is not good for the animal’s skin and it could still be alive and just be dying. The easiest way is to remove the tick in a clockwise direction, which is done with tweezers or your hands if you have practice. This seems simple, but it has the main complication that the dog will resist. It is best to do it between two people, in whom one will hold the dog to prevent it from biting us and the other will remove the tick. If you do not have a person to help you with this task, you will have to resort to a muzzle, which is used so that the dog does not bite anyone. The process must be fast and in one go, something that we are going to explain in more detail below, since we are going to explain both the case of the tweezers and the case of the hands.
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- With tweezers: Removing ticks with tweezers is very simple, since all we have to do is hook the tick with the tweezers and pull by turning clockwise while pulling. Do not pull directly, as the legs are very well hooked and you could injure the dog. Also, avoid pulling out strands of fur from the animal when you use the tweezers, something that is done by removing the hairs well when you want to remove a tick. Once you have removed the tick, take a cloth and put the tick there, for later disposal in the trash, away from the reach of your animal or children.
- With your hands: Removing ticks with your hands is not difficult, since all you have to do is take the tick with your fingernail and remove it in the same way as with tweezers. This is done when we do not have a clamp at hand, but it is not recommended. We must be quick, not scratch the dog and we must also quickly put the tick in the handkerchief that we have mentioned, since it could hook us, the remedy being much worse than the disease. Also spray the paper a bit with oil, to make sure the tick is dead.
After removing the tick:
In most cases with removing the tick almost everything is already done, since the only thing we would have to watch out for is that the dog does not have a very large wound and if so, cure it so that there are no greater evils. However, on some occasion the dog could present the symptoms that we have seen in step 1, despite the fact that we have already eliminated the tick. These symptoms mean that we still have tick venom inside the animal, so it could be one of two things. First of all, it may have more than one tick, something we’ll check by looking the dog up and down again like we did before. Secondly, it could have caught an infection, something that we will check by taking the dog to the vet, who will examine the dog in order to find a cure. Normally, a few days after following the treatment, everything will return to normal, days in which you must be very careful so that the dog does not catch ticks while convalescing.
Prevention:
Prevention is the best home remedy to cure anything, since it prevents the disease from being contracted and both for humans and animals, makes us always healthy or at least increases the chances of being healthy. Preventing a tick is not difficult, since we must buy an anti-tick collar at the vet, which will keep these animals away. The operation of the collar is through the smell, a smell that repels these animals and prevents them from approaching it. In addition, there are some sprays that serve the same purpose, which should be applied to the dog before going outside, so that the smell keeps ticks away. Of course, be careful not to throw it in the eyes, mouth or ears, as it is toxic. If you don’t have this handy, take a spray bottle and fill it with water and apple cider vinegar, which you should spray on your dog. As we have seen before, apple cider vinegar is repellent,
