Pests are a nuisance. Despite their small stature things like woodlice can do real damage to the furnishings inside of your home and head lice can be a massive annoyance to your children; but they are more than just pesky little pests to your pooch — when a dog is infected with ticks, it can lead to a seriously adverse situation for them. It is for this reason that you know how to spot the signs that your dog is inflicted with the plight of ticks, and you should know how to eliminate the problem as well.
There are a host of signs to look out for that will act as a telltale signal that ticks have embedded themselves into your dog. These include actually seeing a tick in your house or garden, specifically near where you dog spends most of their time i.e. their bed or their favourite place to play (or dig) outside; seeing that your dog seems to have come down with a fever out of nowhere; your dog refusing to eat, shivering unusually or panting as if they are lost for breath; and seeing scabs appear on their skin that are seemingly unexplainable. If you spot any of these signs then you must act quickly to tick off your dog’s tick problem; if you don’t, then the tiny little bloodsuckers will just carry on treating your dog’s blood as if it were their breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack.
When you do see a sign or even evidence of a tick you must not only act quickly, but you must act accordingly. You must not simply brush your dog’s fur as pulling upon its skin forcibly may, and probably will, lead to the ticks burrowing even deeper and further, only furthering the possibility of infection. However, this is not to say that just because you are being asked to not use a brush that you should use your bare hands: if you do so you may spread something that is known as Lyme disease to not only your dog, but to you and subsequently anybody you are in contact with too. A treatment that you should seek straight away, however, is to apply a proven medicine such as Frontline for dogs. This will kill the disease carrying pests and even stop any ticks that have been conceived in your dog’s fur from developing into full-blown ticks, so it is essential that it is applied if you want to see your dog regain full health.
But even when the ordeal is over you shouldn’t rest on your laurels: your tick problem may not now be in sight, but it may not yet be over as there could be an underlying infestation of them somewhere in your premises. To ensure that this is not the case you should give your pet, and your premises, close and frequent inspections. What you can do once the ordeal is over, however, is to treat your dog to a box of doggy goodies, because they’ll deserve it!
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