How to Remove a Tick From a Dog

Removing dog ticks is something that can be accomplished by the dog`s owner, as long as the tick isn`t attached to the inside of the ear or the dog`s eyelid, or another spot that is difficult to access and would probably necessitate the use of anesthesia. Regular brushing of the dog can remove ticks if they have not yet attached themselves to the dog by burrowing under its skin and inserting their barbed probe. But if the dog tick has already latched onto the dog using its barbed probe then brushing is not enough. The tick will have to be honed in on and specifically removed.

You should pull the dog`s hair back from the spot where the tick is enlodged so they we have full view of the tick. Once you have done this, you may try applying a few drops of rubbing alcohol or iodine straight onto the tick. This can temporarily shock the bug, and might cause it to loosen its barbed probe.

Now use a pair of tweezers, get as near as you can to the skin, and pull the tick out with a slight twisting movement. The aim of that is to make sure the tick`s head does not break off and remain under the dog`s skin. If the head breaks off and stays under the dog`s skin, a secondary infection is possible. After removing the tick, it is a good idea to reapply iodine or alcohol to the open wound. If the tick`s head has broken off under the skin, hydrogen peroxide can be applied to the wound and this has been known to help.

Typically, after the removal of ticks from the dog, the dog gets reinfested with ticks once again because the owner gets complacent. It`s important to remember the female ticks usually lay 4-5000 eggs at a time, so if one of them infested your dog it is likely that more could do so as well. Washing the dog with a tick powder or different acaracide substance is useful, but the eggs or larvae may be present somewhere in your home, in which case care must be taken to rid the home of this problem as well.

Canine hip dysplasia refers to the malformation of hip joints in dogs as the dog develops. A similar condition was discovered in people by Hippocrates way back in 370 BCE. Since the 1930s, a lot of resources have been devoted to the study and research of hip dysplasia in dogs. Every one of us who own dogs and take an interest in their well-being should remain informed about the condition, what it is, how it develops, and what we can do about it.

In the 1930s all we knew about hip dysplasia was what was written in the medical press, an excerpt of which read like this:

“It (hip dysplasia) constituted faulty growth and development of all tissues in and around the hip joint, that it was not uncommon in a tribe of Canadian Indian children and Italian children and, if not corrected in its early stage, could lead to very painful, arthritic hips in human at middle age or beyond.”

More information about canine hip dysplasia

Our knowledge of hip dysplasia in canines has grow dramatically since the 1930s. We now understand that, unlike other diseases and physical ailments, canine hip dysplasia doesn`t continue to increase in severity as time goes on. But rather, the condition has an acute phase with dramatic symptoms, which occurs during the period of rapid growth in the dog. That is to say, hip dysplasia affects puppies and young dogs that are still growing and physically maturing, typically in large breeds of dogs. During the acute phase, the dog may even have trouble standing up, especially on a slippery surface like a tiled floor or linoleum floor.

Rather than easily standing up, or comfortably returning to a sitting position, the dog in this acute phase will typically fall down with a rough impact, because of the pain in the hip joints. And of course the impact will cause additional pain. The more we have learned about this condition the more we understand that as the animal matures physically and the rapidity of growth decelerates, the acute phase ends and the symptoms decrease greatly. Sometimes they disappear entirely.

The Similarities Between Canine Hip Dysplasia & Hip Troubles in People

Arthritis, in its acute phases that affect people`s lives, may or may not makes itself evident during the middle age years or later years of a person`s life. The factors that affect whether arthritis appears acutely are varied, but include lifestyle and level of activity, sensitivity, weight, race, and so on. This is distinct from hip dysplasia in dogs because in dogs the acute phases comes when the dog is physically maturing into an adult, rather than in its old age.

There are two things that show us the clear difference between hip dysplasia in human beings and in canines. The first thing is that man walks on his hind legs only, and for a much longer time period than dogs. And the second thing is that the condition in dogs is diagnosed based on the looseness of the dog`s joints (aka “joint laxity”) in the young dog.

The ramifications of the first factor mentioned above is that dogs with pain in their hind legs can easily shift a lot of their weight to their front legs, whereas humans don`t do this. This is one of the reasons that the condition can become worse in humans as time goes on, even though in dogs it often goes away as the dog gets older.