May 2, 2023 • 12 mins
Robb Lust, The Dog Professor from the Edgefield Animal Care Center, talks about Ticks! He goes into the different types of ticks, where you'll find them, how to prevent their bites and how to treat a bite on you and your pets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Jordan, I mean studio. Todayis a Dog Professor Rob Lass from the
edge Field to Animal Care Center.It's another episode of the Dog Professor podcast
and my friend we are talking aboutticks, and it seems like every year
we have a different story about ticks. This year the story might be because,
well, we didn't really have muchof a winter, and that's going
to be a problem for ticks.Right. Sure, there's been an increase
(00:23):
in human and dog lime disease caseswithin the last year, and I think
it probably definitely has to do withthem the mild winter, right and the
population bloom of ticks. I knowwe've already seen a big boom in ticks.
And you know our weather here,it's been warm one day, cold
the next, right, Right,So it's important to understand there are ways
(00:47):
to protect your dog and yourself fromticks. In Ohio where we are,
there's basically three types of tick.There's the American dog tick, the black
leg tick sometimes known as the deertick, and the lone star tick.
Um. The black leg tick isthe one that notoriously carries lime disease more
than anything else. Um, Sothat's the one that, um, you
(01:11):
know, you'll see that that tickthat it will get on dogs and attach
to dogs. But the majority oftimes that the ticks you'll see on dogs
are the dog tick. Um.In fact, you'll see ticks climb onto
cats that go outside and not stayon the cat. They actually get off
onto something else And seems like thisyear it's been me rather than dogs.
(01:34):
But um, the point is isthat those three those are the three types
of ticks you'll usually find around here. And it's important too if you find
a tick attached to yourself or toa dog to figure out and identify what
type of ticket is. Online,you can go to the CDC here in
Ohio where we are. Um,you can go to the Ohio DNR website
(01:55):
and they'll show you all all thethree different types of ticks that we have
here. But long story short,there are definitely ways to prevent you from
from finding ticks on you, andthat starts with preventing your pets from bringing
them in the house. Um.We're always talking year after year after year
about making sure you're on flea andtick preventative for your pets. It's it's
(02:19):
very easy to do, and butyou also want to make sure that the
product is also made to prevent ticks. A lot of products are one or
the other, but there are afew out there that usually you get from
your veterinarian um that will take careof both fleas and ticks. Fleas we
won't see in this area of thecountry until around um fall winter. Now
(02:43):
that's been the shift. They usedto be a summer type of bug that
would really bloom up, and they'renot that anymore. Ticks used to be
an early spring and then they goaway in May and June and um and
that's changed also, so they're reallyreally bloom now. So it's important number
one work on prevention um, youknow, prevention on the pet, on
(03:06):
dogs and your cat. Again,like I said, cats very rarely have
ticks attached to them just because theyare not the ticks. They are not
the ticks preferred food stores. Butthey will also they will carry them in
the house. So put a preventativeon your cat if it's going in and
out of the house also, andthat will obviously take care of your issue
(03:30):
later on with fleas. You don'twant to find out about that. It's
time to put your preventative on byfinding fleas on your pet or on you
or anything like that in the house, so it's important to do that.
There's also a couple of other diseasesthat ticks will carry that are dangerous to
your pet and sometimes to you.There's erlichiosis. You might have heard your
veterinarian talk about that Rocky Mountain spottedfever. We've heard about that for years.
(03:55):
But lime disease is the biggie,and you can actually get your pet
vaccinated for lyme disease to prevent themif you're you know, mainly for dogs
that are spent a lot of timeout in high tick environments, you should
really as an owner think about thatbeing one of your normal vaccines in the
(04:16):
vaccine protocol, you get your dogvaccinated um, so that those are the
ways that you can prevent that andprevent them from coming in and getting on
you keep your grass mode short umbirds will eat ticks, Okay, they
if they can find them, they'regoing to eat them. U plus ticks
like like darkness, and they likeyou know, when it starts to dry
(04:36):
out and stuff in June and Julyand things like that. They don't like
a lot of sun. So ifthat that type of exposure, by keeping
your grass short will help to keepthat down. You can treat your yard
now as the time most lawn peoplewill tell you to treat your yard for
um, ticks, fleas, allother types of bugs. That helps with
(04:57):
um not bringing them in the housealso, so and just give yourself and
your dog of visual inspection each timeyou're going out there. If you find
a tick that has attached to youor your dog, don't just squeeze it
and take it off. We wantto make sure. We want to be
careful and get the head out asbest we can, because when the head
(05:17):
lodges in the skin, it cancause other issues. If a tick is
attached a black leg tick or adeer tick is attached to your pet,
it can transmit lime disease to youor your pet within a twenty four to
forty eight hour period right now,but not in the first few hours.
Doesn't it take ten twelve before transferexactly. So if we get that out
(05:42):
quickly, the worst we could willprobably deal with is maybe a itchy bite
something like that. So the easiestway to deal with that, get your
alcohol swab, alcohol, the spotdown, alcohol the tick down. Sometimes
that'll actually make the tick back itself. Out on its own. Find a
pair of tweezers and get as closeto the skin where the tick is attached
(06:05):
as you can and pull out slowlyfrom there. Um, don't just scrape
them off things like that. It'simportant to make sure we get that head
out and then plus that alcohol willhelp clean up the area right away if
to keep any infection from coming.And then watch the area on you and
your pet. Inspecting your pets,inspecting your dogs. The hiding places most
(06:29):
missed for ticks are inside the earsand in between the pads of the feet.
Those are hot spots where ticks canhide, and you'll never think to
look there. You'll just think tobrush over the top of the dog and
go from there. But we pulledthem out from the pads of the feet
and obviously inside the ears on dogswhere ears are flopped over and everything like
that. So make sure you giveyour dog a once over when they come
(06:50):
in when we're dealing with that.And that's I mean, that's something that's
just gone crazy right now. Imean, I I've gotten four off of
me just just sitting around the house, you know, And and there's a
lot of creepy things I can dealwith and ticks are not one of them.
Um, so it's important to payattention to that and be be aware
(07:15):
and be proactive with it rather thanreactive with it. Well, you definitely
want to check when you're in thehigh grasses and things like that, but
heck, you just hanging around thehouse kid them. Obviously, it's it's
out by word in the place.Yeah, I mean I've I've gone out
and just walked in my mode yardand obviously we have trees. Ticks spend
a lot of times the trees,so you can just fall walk under a
(07:35):
tree or brush past a tree orbush or anything like that, and that's
where they will usually be rather thandown down low in the grass. So
um, that's those are the placesthat they're looking for. Don't smash him,
okay, because if you smash him, and we you know, it's
it's a possibility you could spread sometick eggs within your carpet, within the
(07:55):
house. Easiest thing, put themin a bag, throw them into garbage,
down the toilet, anything like that. That's your best way to dispose
of them. Yeah, there yougo. So make sure that that you're
checking that and not just now herein the spring like you were saying,
that's kind of a regular thing.Now you've got to check them for ticks
pretty much all the time. Theeasiest thing we've talked about with fleas,
(08:16):
because fleas can can basically populate yourhouse. Tis not as much just because
they're not as prolific in breeding asas fleas are, but fleas definitely so
the easiest. Obviously, we've we'vewe've said this over and over again.
The easiest thing to do is justkeep your pets on their flea and tick
(08:37):
preventive medicine year round. That way, you're not worrying about, well,
how long it has the medicine waroff. It's been two months since we
put it on because it's been winterand everything. So so how many fleas
came in? How many did thefleas ever go away? You know that
type of thing. So it's justthe easiest thing and the most effective way
of keeping all those creepy crawleys outof your house, out of your environment,
(09:00):
and off of you, you andyour pet is to stay on your
preventative year round. How does atick preventative work when it attaches, it
decides it doesn't like the flavor,I mean, interesting enough but yeah,
maybe don't. Well most most um, the two types of tick preventative and
it's flee preventative also are something thatworks on the internal system of your pet
(09:20):
or something that stays on the externalskin area of your pet. Um.
If it's something that your pet usuallytakes internally, um, you know,
nine times out of ten, itrequires the pet, the bug to bite
the pet and then in just themedication kills kills kills the bug that way,
if it's something now some we gotto really delve into some of these
(09:43):
products that are being taken out becausethey do some of these products that are
taken internally actually have a bit they'renot meant to, but they do have
a bit of a higher preventative effectwhen the without a bite, okay,
okay, And whether that has todeal with the fat layer the oil layer
on the pet's skin, because whenyou when you put on an external preventative
(10:07):
UM something you put on their backor drops or whatever that usually works with
the lipid layer of the skin.So the oil that's just sets on the
on the top layer of the skinmoves around the pet's body basically providing this
shield. And the moment a buggets on that whether it be a flea
or tick, nine times out often um. What it does is that
(10:28):
the bug, the contact with thefeet of that bug basically that's how they
get the medication preventative and it killsthem from there. So so with ticks,
I've I've seen over the years thateven though it's an external preventative,
um, they don't even want tohave any anything to do with it all
(10:50):
at all. Okay, there havebeen um sometimes with an internal preventative where
you'll find dead ticks that have havebitten the pet and they're on the pet,
but they're they're dead because they ingestedthe medication or whatever. And usually
that cases like that, you stillgot to deal with a bite, but
you're you're cutting the chances of contractingthe diseases that much more. That makes
(11:13):
sense. Good stuff, man,that's really good stuff. If somebody's got
issues and they need to see theveterinarians or training or whatever, tell them
what you do at Edgefield Animal CareCenter and how they can reach out.
Edgefield Animal Care Center we're in thecentral Ohio area where a full service animal
care facility, a veterinary hospital,boarding, grooming, training, all that
stuff. You can get all thatinformation, find out all about us,
(11:35):
listen to the back episodes of theDog Professor podcast. Whatever you want.
You can find all that information onour website at Edgefield Animalcare dot com.
Yeah, some great stuff, Andof course you can find the Dog Professor
Podcast here and anywhere you find yourfavorite podcast. Make sure you hit follow
when you find it, and you'llget a notification every time we post a
(11:58):
new one, right there on yourphone.
Jordan, I mean studio. Todayis a Dog Professor Rob Lass from the
edge Field to Animal Care Center.It's another episode of the Dog Professor podcast
and my friend we are talking aboutticks, and it seems like every year
we have a different story about ticks. This year the story might be because,
well, we didn't really have muchof a winter, and that's going
to be a problem for ticks.Right. Sure, there's been an increase
(00:23):
in human and dog lime disease caseswithin the last year, and I think
it probably definitely has to do withthem the mild winter, right and the
population bloom of ticks. I knowwe've already seen a big boom in ticks.
And you know our weather here,it's been warm one day, cold
the next, right, Right,So it's important to understand there are ways
(00:47):
to protect your dog and yourself fromticks. In Ohio where we are,
there's basically three types of tick.There's the American dog tick, the black
leg tick sometimes known as the deertick, and the lone star tick.
Um. The black leg tick isthe one that notoriously carries lime disease more
than anything else. Um, Sothat's the one that, um, you
(01:11):
know, you'll see that that tickthat it will get on dogs and attach
to dogs. But the majority oftimes that the ticks you'll see on dogs
are the dog tick. Um.In fact, you'll see ticks climb onto
cats that go outside and not stayon the cat. They actually get off
onto something else And seems like thisyear it's been me rather than dogs.
(01:34):
But um, the point is isthat those three those are the three types
of ticks you'll usually find around here. And it's important too if you find
a tick attached to yourself or toa dog to figure out and identify what
type of ticket is. Online,you can go to the CDC here in
Ohio where we are. Um,you can go to the Ohio DNR website
(01:55):
and they'll show you all all thethree different types of ticks that we have
here. But long story short,there are definitely ways to prevent you from
from finding ticks on you, andthat starts with preventing your pets from bringing
them in the house. Um.We're always talking year after year after year
about making sure you're on flea andtick preventative for your pets. It's it's
(02:19):
very easy to do, and butyou also want to make sure that the
product is also made to prevent ticks. A lot of products are one or
the other, but there are afew out there that usually you get from
your veterinarian um that will take careof both fleas and ticks. Fleas we
won't see in this area of thecountry until around um fall winter. Now
(02:43):
that's been the shift. They usedto be a summer type of bug that
would really bloom up, and they'renot that anymore. Ticks used to be
an early spring and then they goaway in May and June and um and
that's changed also, so they're reallyreally bloom now. So it's important number
one work on prevention um, youknow, prevention on the pet, on
(03:06):
dogs and your cat. Again,like I said, cats very rarely have
ticks attached to them just because theyare not the ticks. They are not
the ticks preferred food stores. Butthey will also they will carry them in
the house. So put a preventativeon your cat if it's going in and
out of the house also, andthat will obviously take care of your issue
(03:30):
later on with fleas. You don'twant to find out about that. It's
time to put your preventative on byfinding fleas on your pet or on you
or anything like that in the house, so it's important to do that.
There's also a couple of other diseasesthat ticks will carry that are dangerous to
your pet and sometimes to you.There's erlichiosis. You might have heard your
veterinarian talk about that Rocky Mountain spottedfever. We've heard about that for years.
(03:55):
But lime disease is the biggie,and you can actually get your pet
vaccinated for lyme disease to prevent themif you're you know, mainly for dogs
that are spent a lot of timeout in high tick environments, you should
really as an owner think about thatbeing one of your normal vaccines in the
(04:16):
vaccine protocol, you get your dogvaccinated um, so that those are the
ways that you can prevent that andprevent them from coming in and getting on
you keep your grass mode short umbirds will eat ticks, Okay, they
if they can find them, they'regoing to eat them. U plus ticks
like like darkness, and they likeyou know, when it starts to dry
(04:36):
out and stuff in June and Julyand things like that. They don't like
a lot of sun. So ifthat that type of exposure, by keeping
your grass short will help to keepthat down. You can treat your yard
now as the time most lawn peoplewill tell you to treat your yard for
um, ticks, fleas, allother types of bugs. That helps with
(04:57):
um not bringing them in the housealso, so and just give yourself and
your dog of visual inspection each timeyou're going out there. If you find
a tick that has attached to youor your dog, don't just squeeze it
and take it off. We wantto make sure. We want to be
careful and get the head out asbest we can, because when the head
(05:17):
lodges in the skin, it cancause other issues. If a tick is
attached a black leg tick or adeer tick is attached to your pet,
it can transmit lime disease to youor your pet within a twenty four to
forty eight hour period right now,but not in the first few hours.
Doesn't it take ten twelve before transferexactly. So if we get that out
(05:42):
quickly, the worst we could willprobably deal with is maybe a itchy bite
something like that. So the easiestway to deal with that, get your
alcohol swab, alcohol, the spotdown, alcohol the tick down. Sometimes
that'll actually make the tick back itself. Out on its own. Find a
pair of tweezers and get as closeto the skin where the tick is attached
(06:05):
as you can and pull out slowlyfrom there. Um, don't just scrape
them off things like that. It'simportant to make sure we get that head
out and then plus that alcohol willhelp clean up the area right away if
to keep any infection from coming.And then watch the area on you and
your pet. Inspecting your pets,inspecting your dogs. The hiding places most
(06:29):
missed for ticks are inside the earsand in between the pads of the feet.
Those are hot spots where ticks canhide, and you'll never think to
look there. You'll just think tobrush over the top of the dog and
go from there. But we pulledthem out from the pads of the feet
and obviously inside the ears on dogswhere ears are flopped over and everything like
that. So make sure you giveyour dog a once over when they come
(06:50):
in when we're dealing with that.And that's I mean, that's something that's
just gone crazy right now. Imean, I I've gotten four off of
me just just sitting around the house, you know, And and there's a
lot of creepy things I can dealwith and ticks are not one of them.
Um, so it's important to payattention to that and be be aware
(07:15):
and be proactive with it rather thanreactive with it. Well, you definitely
want to check when you're in thehigh grasses and things like that, but
heck, you just hanging around thehouse kid them. Obviously, it's it's
out by word in the place.Yeah, I mean I've I've gone out
and just walked in my mode yardand obviously we have trees. Ticks spend
a lot of times the trees,so you can just fall walk under a
(07:35):
tree or brush past a tree orbush or anything like that, and that's
where they will usually be rather thandown down low in the grass. So
um, that's those are the placesthat they're looking for. Don't smash him,
okay, because if you smash him, and we you know, it's
it's a possibility you could spread sometick eggs within your carpet, within the
(07:55):
house. Easiest thing, put themin a bag, throw them into garbage,
down the toilet, anything like that. That's your best way to dispose
of them. Yeah, there yougo. So make sure that that you're
checking that and not just now herein the spring like you were saying,
that's kind of a regular thing.Now you've got to check them for ticks
pretty much all the time. Theeasiest thing we've talked about with fleas,
(08:16):
because fleas can can basically populate yourhouse. Tis not as much just because
they're not as prolific in breeding asas fleas are, but fleas definitely so
the easiest. Obviously, we've we'vewe've said this over and over again.
The easiest thing to do is justkeep your pets on their flea and tick
(08:37):
preventive medicine year round. That way, you're not worrying about, well,
how long it has the medicine waroff. It's been two months since we
put it on because it's been winterand everything. So so how many fleas
came in? How many did thefleas ever go away? You know that
type of thing. So it's justthe easiest thing and the most effective way
of keeping all those creepy crawleys outof your house, out of your environment,
(09:00):
and off of you, you andyour pet is to stay on your
preventative year round. How does atick preventative work when it attaches, it
decides it doesn't like the flavor,I mean, interesting enough but yeah,
maybe don't. Well most most um, the two types of tick preventative and
it's flee preventative also are something thatworks on the internal system of your pet
(09:20):
or something that stays on the externalskin area of your pet. Um.
If it's something that your pet usuallytakes internally, um, you know,
nine times out of ten, itrequires the pet, the bug to bite
the pet and then in just themedication kills kills kills the bug that way,
if it's something now some we gotto really delve into some of these
(09:43):
products that are being taken out becausethey do some of these products that are
taken internally actually have a bit they'renot meant to, but they do have
a bit of a higher preventative effectwhen the without a bite, okay,
okay, And whether that has todeal with the fat layer the oil layer
on the pet's skin, because whenyou when you put on an external preventative
(10:07):
UM something you put on their backor drops or whatever that usually works with
the lipid layer of the skin.So the oil that's just sets on the
on the top layer of the skinmoves around the pet's body basically providing this
shield. And the moment a buggets on that whether it be a flea
or tick, nine times out often um. What it does is that
(10:28):
the bug, the contact with thefeet of that bug basically that's how they
get the medication preventative and it killsthem from there. So so with ticks,
I've I've seen over the years thateven though it's an external preventative,
um, they don't even want tohave any anything to do with it all
(10:50):
at all. Okay, there havebeen um sometimes with an internal preventative where
you'll find dead ticks that have havebitten the pet and they're on the pet,
but they're they're dead because they ingestedthe medication or whatever. And usually
that cases like that, you stillgot to deal with a bite, but
you're you're cutting the chances of contractingthe diseases that much more. That makes
(11:13):
sense. Good stuff, man,that's really good stuff. If somebody's got
issues and they need to see theveterinarians or training or whatever, tell them
what you do at Edgefield Animal CareCenter and how they can reach out.
Edgefield Animal Care Center we're in thecentral Ohio area where a full service animal
care facility, a veterinary hospital,boarding, grooming, training, all that
stuff. You can get all thatinformation, find out all about us,
(11:35):
listen to the back episodes of theDog Professor podcast. Whatever you want.
You can find all that information onour website at Edgefield Animalcare dot com.
Yeah, some great stuff, Andof course you can find the Dog Professor
Podcast here and anywhere you find yourfavorite podcast. Make sure you hit follow
when you find it, and you'llget a notification every time we post a
(11:58):
new one, right there on yourphone.
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