My Dog Has A Tick: How Do I Get That Off and Get Rid Of It

There's a lot of nonsense about tick removal on the internet.

Telling you to pull them off, suffocate with vasoline and all kinds of rubbish.

This is the right way, no bull, straight up, works every time, recommended and used method to remove ticks easily, safely and cheaply.

If you follow my instructions and use the right piece of inexpensive kit you will be able to quickly and painlessly remove any ticks from your dog.

No trips to the vet required where they will charge you for removal and what they call 'consultation'.

How do I know this?

Because I own dogs, they get ticks, and we get rid of them.

How did I learn it?

Well that's a little story itself which I might tell you at the end of this page.

First off, let's make sure it is a tick and you are not trying to pull your dogs ear off or some other part of their anatomy.

To the right is an artists impression. I use the term artist quite loosely here, as I am not very good at drawing - but hopefully it is enough to give you the basic idea.

A tick is a brilliantly designed parasite, which hides in long grassy areas and waits for a passing animal to hook onto.

Once attached with those little pincers, it hangs on and is very difficult to dislodge.

It feeds on the animals blood, sometimes infecting them with nasty illnesses or infections as a by product.

Once it's had enough blood it drops off and breeds. I think. But I am not really that interested in it's life cycle.

I just want to get the damn thing off my dog.

Take your special twizzle tick remover stick out of the cupboard.

Get your dog relaxed and near you with some petting, or a biscuit or if you're really lucky one word of command. Yeah right.

We use the phrase "tick time" and the dogs know to come close, sit and get petted and biscuits.

Get your dog relaxed, stroke him, and hold him firmly. We don't want him struggling to get away.

Place fork part of twizzle stick between tick and dog skin.

This can take some time first time around - because you don't want to hurt the dog, you're a bit nervous, you don't want to rip the tick off and leave the leg bits buried in the skin.

If you don't succeed within a minute - relax, take a few minutes.. and start again.

The fork bit will slide between tick and dog. Once it is in position the idea is to turn slowly and gently so that the tick finds it hard to hang on. A half turn is probably sufficient, but maybe another half turn will do it.

Very, very gently pull the tick stick, plus tick, away from the dog. If it doesn't come, then turn a bit more. Eventually the tick will give up and let go.

Important: You are not making the tick let go, you are persuading.

Treat the tick gently during the process - it is essential that it lets go properly and that you do not leave bits of tick embedded in your dogs skin where it can cause infection problems.

If you lift the stick up fairly vertically then the tick will stay on the stick and you can put it straight into the toilet or over the neighbours fence (joke).

Alternatively, if you are fascinated by these bizarre and blood thirsty creatures, you can store them in your tick collection jar.

Sounds like a big deal?

All kinds of specialist veterinary tools, multiple tweezer sizes plus ointments?

Nah. A very cheap tool available from Amazon, pictured to your right.

I have only shown one, the one I use. There are hundreds to choose from but they are all essentially the same thing.

Tempted to use tweezers? Yeah, I would be.

Except holding your dog, and manipulating a pair of tweezers which are NOT designed for the purpose, and persuading a tick to let go are not skills I need to try and acquire for the sake of a couple of dollars.

Seriously, just buy the tick gear and put it in your little animal medical chest for next time.

The first time I saw a tick was on my daughters face.

Yep. She'd been to a party and come back with this insect on the side of her face.

We tried pulling it. Ow!

Dosed it in alchohol. More ow.

Now have a dead tick which won't let go.

Emergency hospital visit. Three nurses all puzzling what to do. About an hour of messing around.

Eventually they remove the tick with their special medical equipment and we go home.

Two days later discover first tick on a dog. Visit to a vet, of course, like what else can we do? Vet gets it off in two seconds flat with his twizzler thingy.

After paying the large bill the penny dropped.

How much are those twizzler things?

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