How to Remove Ticks
by John Williams

Ticks are a nasty little arachnid pest that attach to your dog and can be very irritating and soar for your pet. They carry many different diseases that can be mildly dangerous to your dog and other members of your household. Some diseases take up to twenty four hours to pass on to their host so getting rid of the pests easily and quickly is essential.

There are a lot of ways that you may have been taught as a child to get rid of ticks from the skin, the most popular is probably to burn the tick into releasing his grip of his own accord so no further problems can arise of having the jaws still stuck into the skin.

The second way often taught to get rid of ticks is to smother them in oil based liquids of Vaseline to help take the tick out in a similar fashion to the way noted above.

These ways are both wrong and can be very dangerous, the first is dangerous, can be painful for your dog and will more than likely scare your dog into behaving in a bad manner. The second is also dangerous and unneeded, the idea is to keep your skin and around the area of the tick as clean as possible to avoid further infection or disease.

The way to remove the tick properly and with little damage or pain is to use sterilised tweezers to dislodge the critter, it takes patience if the tick is stubborn and doesn’t want to move but it is the safest way to remove the pests.

Be careful not to pull on the ticks body wile pulling him out, if you pull too hard on the body it will come off separate to the jaws and mouth of the tick causing it to be harder to dislodge. 

Start by cleaning the tweezers with alcohol or burning over a flame if alcohol is not available. You may want to also put alcohol around the area in question to keep it clean. Once this is done try to get as close to the skin of the dog and grab the tick at the jaws, to do this you will need to place the tweezers from the side into position. If the tick refuses to budge, try moving from side to side to unhook the jaws wile pulling away from the skin. Doing this and keeping constant pressure on the tick will cause him to tire and give in, releasing the tick in one go.

Finnish off by cleaning the area with alcohol or soapy water and you job is complete.

John William is a dog trainer out of the UK you can visit his site here: John's Site