Ticks on Dogs: What to Do When You Find One

Ticks aren’t only a summer problem in central Virginia. The Cornell Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center notes that ticks can be active year-round whenever the temperature is above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and that Lyme disease is most common in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic and the upper Midwest. Charlottesville sits in the mid-Atlantic, which means a January walk along the Rivanna or an afternoon in the back yard both count.

So the question for most owners isn’t whether their dog will pick one up. It’s what to do in the first few minutes after they find one.

Here’s the short version. Take the tick off promptly, or have it taken off. Don’t try to make it let go with petroleum jelly, heat or nail polish. Then watch the dog over the following weeks, because the signs of a tick-borne illness show up long after the tick is gone. Autumn Trails Veterinary Center is open 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, if you’d rather someone else did the removing.

What a tick looks like, and where they come from

Ticks are easy to miss. Cornell describes the black-legged ticks that carry Lyme as very small, ranging from the size of a poppy seed to a sesame seed, and the CDC notes that ticks crawling on or biting a pet can be hard to spot, especially on breeds with long and dark fur. The CDC’s pets page includes a diagram of where ticks are most often found biting a dog.

Cornell’s flea and tick guidance says dogs pick them up in the places ticks live, such as tall grass and wooded areas, where they wait to attach to a passing animal. That covers most of a Charlottesville dog’s week.

What to do when you find one

The CDC’s advice for pets is blunt: check pets daily for ticks, and if you find one biting, remove it right away. Speed is the whole point. Cornell notes that after a tick carrying the Lyme bacteria attaches, it takes at least 24 to 48 hours before transmission happens, so prompt removal is what helps avoid infection in the first place.

If the tick is somewhere awkward, or the dog won’t hold still, that’s a reasonable thing to bring in. A veterinarian can take it off and look at the skin underneath at the same time.

What not to do

The most common searches around this topic are about killing ticks instantly, and the tricks that come up all share a flaw. The CDC’s guidance on removing ticks, which is written for people rather than pets, says not to use petroleum jelly, heat, nail polish or other substances to try to make a tick detach, because this may agitate the tick and force infected fluid into the skin. The “instant” methods work on the tick’s willingness to let go, which is exactly what you don’t want.

Nothing poured, sprayed or smeared on an attached tick beats taking it off now.

What to watch for afterward

A tick coming off is not the end of it, and this is the part the DIY advice tends to skip. The CDC says to watch a pet closely for changes in behavior or appetite if you know or suspect it has been bitten, and that signs of tick-borne disease may not appear for 7 to 21 days or longer after the bite.

For Lyme specifically, Cornell’s timeline is longer still. Most dogs exposed to Lyme never become sick. In those that do, signs often don’t appear until two to five months after the bite, and the ones to know are:

• Fever
• Lameness
• Lethargy
• Decreased appetite
• Joint swelling and pain
• Swollen lymph nodes

Cornell also describes a less common but serious kidney complication, with more severe signs: vomiting, not eating, increased thirst and urination, weight loss and extreme lethargy. Those are reasons to be seen rather than to wait and see.

Timing matters for testing too. Cornell notes that a blood test looks for antibodies, and that testing should be delayed at least four to eight weeks after a tick bite, because antibodies take time to develop.

The diseases ticks carry here

Lyme is the one owners have heard of, and the mid-Atlantic is one of the places it’s most common. It isn’t the only one. Cornell lists anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever among the common tick-borne diseases, and notes that several of them can spread to people as well as dogs. That’s where prevention earns its keep: the CDC points out that except for Lyme disease in dogs, pets cannot be vaccinated against tick-borne diseases. For everything else, keeping ticks off the dog is the protection.

Two more things from the CDC worth knowing in a house with pets. Dogs can be infested by the brown dog tick, which is unusual in that it can infest indoor spaces like homes and kennels. And pets can carry ticks indoors that later bite people, which is why a tick on the dog is a household matter, not just a dog one.

For more on what these infections look like, see what every dog owner should know about tick-borne diseases and the growing threat of Lyme disease in Virginia pets.

Prevention, which is the part that actually works

Both the CDC and Cornell land in the same place, and neither recommendation involves a home remedy.

• Check daily. The CDC recommends daily checks for pets that go outdoors, which may also prevent crawling ticks from getting onto and biting a person. Long or dark coats make them easy to miss.
• Use a tick preventive product, chosen with your veterinarian. The CDC is direct that dogs are very susceptible to tick bites and tick-borne diseases, that vaccines don’t exist for most of those diseases, and that a preventive product is therefore important. Cornell adds a distinction worth knowing: some products repel ticks or stop them attaching, while others kill a tick after it has attached, so how fast a product works matters. Which one suits a particular dog is a conversation at the exam, not a shelf decision.
• Keep it going year-round. Cornell lists year-round tick control first among the ways to avoid Lyme, along with routine checks, prompt removal, avoiding tall grass and wooded areas, and vaccination.
• Ask about the Lyme vaccine. The CDC suggests talking to your veterinarian about tick-borne diseases in your area, and about whether a Lyme vaccine makes sense for your dog.
• Reduce tick habitat in the yard. Shorter grass and fewer leaf piles.

One safety point that catches people out. The CDC warns that cats are extremely sensitive to a variety of chemicals, and that no tick prevention product should be applied to a cat without asking a veterinarian first. In a house with a dog and a cat, the dog’s product is not a shared product.

Parasite prevention is part of general wellness care.

When to call

Call Autumn Trails Veterinary Center if the dog is off its food or behaving differently in the weeks after a bite, if it develops a fever, limps or seems stiff and sore, if the skin where the tick was attached looks red or sore, or if you’ve found ticks repeatedly and want prevention sorted properly. The practice is open 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, so a tick found on a Sunday morning doesn’t have to wait.

Common questions

What kills ticks on dogs instantly?

Nothing you should reach for at home. The CDC’s tick-removal guidance, written for people, is to take an attached tick off promptly rather than try to make it detach with petroleum jelly, heat or nail polish, because that can agitate it. Prevention is the part that actually keeps ticks off a dog. Cornell notes that some preventives repel ticks or stop them attaching at all, while others kill a tick after it attaches, which is why how quickly a product works matters. A veterinarian picks the one that suits the dog.

Can one tick bite give my dog Lyme disease?

It can, but time is on your side. Cornell says a tick carrying the Lyme bacteria has to be attached for at least 24 to 48 hours before transmission occurs, which is exactly why daily checks and prompt removal matter. Cornell also notes that most dogs exposed to Lyme never become sick.

Should I have the tick tested?

The CDC’s tick guidance advises against it in general: results from tick testing shouldn’t be used to make treatment decisions, a positive result doesn’t mean infection happened, and a negative one can give false reassurance. Watching the dog and talking to a veterinarian about timing is more useful than testing the tick.