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General => Pets Corner => Topic started by: Aeeeek on February 01, 2006, 10:28:20
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When brushing my dog yesterday I found a grey wrinkly lump on his back about size of pea, this morning it seems bigger and not wrinky anymore and kind of shiny...... before I rush him off to vets could this be a tick ( or is it tic?) we do walk him in fields/long grass , anyway I can tell ? and do they eventually fall off or do they have to be removed???
any advice gratefully received !
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It's a tic and will eventually fall off. Ideally you should remove and kill it as you have no idea where it's going to end up. Maybe in your bed? Tics will also suck human blood.
My dog goes all over the place with me and inevetably she picks up the odd one. I have a little plastic gadget I got from the vet which works better than anything I have ever tried. Aslo from pet shops I'm sure. It's yellow and sort of L shaped with two 'prongs' at the base. You slide it under the tic and twist then pull, that makes sure you get the whole thing. If you leave any part in the dog it will fester. Best thing is to place it on a tissue and see if it moves, if it does than you have the whole thing. Then you squash it to make sure there isn't a chance of it returning....or breeding!
There is also a liquid from the vets that you put on the dog's back (so the dog can't lick it). It's a good preventative for tics and fleas.
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Ah I see Ken has already beaten me to it!!!! Exactly what i was going to say myself. :D
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if it's a tic it will have legs, the grey ones can have teeny little legs so look carefully :)
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Just don't get too close in case it jumps into your eye and sucks all the blood out of it and your eye falls on the floor and you stand on it and then you've only got one eye to see you through the week and then you've got to queeze all the juices out of the tic and back into your eye and then you have a problem getting a full eye back into the socket and you still have to poke your eye with the yellow gadget to get the tic out and chances are if it's a big tic with big spikey legs it'll hang on real tight and you'll pull your eye out all over again and have to go to the vets to have the tic removed before it has a chance of sucking your eye dry again.
Your best bet is; sell the dog.
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What a load of eyewash Ken, and not a word of truth in it. LOL ::)
Sell the dog.......whatever next and what a bloodcurdling story.
Ticks cannot jump. Cast an eye over this from a Q&A website:
Do ticks jump?
No. People often think that because a tick often attaches in the head, that the tick has jumped out of the trees. As ticks are susceptible to desiccation, they tend not to climb very high in the vegetation. Once on a host, the tick may take several hours before finding a site to attach to, which is often on the head. Ticks do not have legs that are adapted for jumping.
When my dog has a tick, I get some flea spray or some spirit such as vodka, gin whisky etc and really soak the tick with it. ;) I wait three minutes, pull the tick out with tweezers and then squash it in the handbasin and flush it away.
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Ah! Pauline, that's not true. You never eyeballed a tic? It depends on the season....don't you know that there song....'Timing, a-tic-a-tic-a-tic-a-tic-a-timing'...? If the timings right you'll get lots of tica's ...'tickin' all over the place'....yeah! Yeah! Yeah.....yeaaaah!
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I wonder what happened to Jimmy Jones the two hit wonder man with Good Timing and Handyman. 8) oops, I've put Roy Orbison here!!
Getting back to the subject matter, I am surprised that the ticks are about at this time of year. We get quite a few here but not normally until April and the weather has not exactly been mild.
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Aeeek
I would say that is is a tick. I would also say the best form of action is to take the dog to the vets to get it removed. Ticks can carry an illness called Lyme disease. This illness can kill your dog. Please take your dog to the vet. If you try and get it out and leave the head in the dog it will cause all sorts of problems.
Kenkew
Just behave ;D. TICKS DON'T AND NEVER HAVE JUMPED. It is fleas that jump.
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Got a tic of my dog just a few days ago....suprised me too at this time of year.
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Please, please tell me I don't need to explain the difference between humour and serious......anyone taking my 'jumping' post as anything other than humour really wants to read it again, come-on!! Really?
PS: My first posting dealt with the matter in detail. As a therapist who also treats animals I'm a firm believer in giving correct advice as I see it followed with a little humour to lessen stress...(to the owner, not the animal!)...and if you take it to the vet it will cost you money for something you could quite easily do yourself. Regarding Lyme arthitis, it's a disease transmitted by deer tics first dicovered in the town of Lyme, connecticut and if you or an animal is bitten by an infected tic you have a small chance of contracting the disease. Going to the vet will not prevent this happening once you're bitten. Treatment is not usually succesful and can result in many years of pain and possible wheelchair for life use and eventual death. Is that serious enough?
Having said that, life has to be lived with or without the down side, eh?...'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'....now, who sang that?
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Aeeek
I would say that is is a tick. I would also say the best form of action is to take the dog to the vets to get it removed. Ticks can carry an illness called Lyme disease. This illness can kill your dog. Please take your dog to the vet. If you try and get it out and leave the head in the dog it will cause all sorts of problems.
Joji, if I took Meggie to the vets everytime she had a tick, I would be bankrupt by now. Even though she has Frontline flea and tick treatment, she still manages to get ticks practically every day during the summer. Whilst I agree that Aeeeek should consult the vet for some protection for her dog, especially during the summer, I really think it is a bit OTT getting the vet to remove the tick.
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Many years ago when I lived in Singapore we had a dog. Our dog picked up ticks every day and every night she had to have the 'ticks' removed. I kept tweezers next to a creamy solution and carefully removed each tick. So I would ahve been at the vets daily. Now and then a tick would release itself from the dog and crawl up our wall. That usually happened when we had visitors. Typical eh.
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When I lived in Germany my house backed on to a forest.
My dog Cassie was forever getting ticks and always in the same two places. On her bum,I mean THEE bum not the bit around it and on her foof. My ex husband got the job of removing the ticks. Trying to get one off a dog's foof is bad enough,they don't co- operate for some reason, but when it is on the bum...you get a grip of the tick with some tweezers and the bum sucks it up!! So,because ticks were a common problem, we had been given lots of tips on how to remove them. When ticks have their head stuck in the skin they are breathing through a hole in their behind...so we were informed. One method is to cover the tick with a thick amount of petroleum jelly. The tick can't breathe and it drops off. Well this tick on Cassie's butt would not budge. Cassie kept tightening her sphinctor everytime we approached the tick with tweezers and it disappeared. It was decided that the petroleum jelly would have to be applied.
Picture this. You are my neighbour and you have just strolled out into your garden to enjoy the evening sunshine. You turn smiling,full of the joys when you are confronted with the spectacle of my (ex) OH with the dog held tightly between his knees. He is holding her tail up high in the air with one hand whilst whilst the index finger of the other hand,loaded with copious amounts of vaseline is heading straight for the dog's anus. :o :o What would you think?!
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:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Thats a cracker Heldi. :D :D :D
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Oh Heldi that must have been a site hee hee,
But the treatment is vaseline and cover the tick to suffercate it so it cannot breath and it will drop off where well keep the poor dog confined for a couple of days.
The old story of if you pull it out it will leave the head behind and go septic not nice for the animal.
I always have some hydrogen peroxide solution 3%
great for any cuts or wounds on animals and humanes as well. The vets use this dead cheap from any chemist.
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Many years ago when I lived in Singapore we had a dog. Our dog picked up ticks every day and every night she had to have the 'ticks' removed. I kept tweezers next to a creamy solution and carefully removed each tick. So I would ahve been at the vets daily. Now and then a tick would release itself from the dog and crawl up our wall. That usually happened when we had visitors. Typical eh.
Snap! Me too in S'ingers with my dog.
Chip Bee? Serangoon?
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If you have never removed a tick before. It is best to go to the vet for them to teach you how to remove one properly. That is all I was saying.
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That certainly makes sense, jojo or get an 'expert' to show how. It's not at all difficult but if done wrong it can leave part of the tic embedded and then there's a possible infection problem. Most dog owners have dealt with this problem and know what to do. Ask around if you need to be shown how.
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KenKew. The name is JOJI Not Jojo. :)
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Whoops! Sorry, jojo.
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well thanks everybody for all your advice etc.....tried to remove 'tick' with alcohol combined then with Vaseline treatment .....did not budge, so thought sod it lets take dog to vet , turns out reason it didn't budge is it was a lump/abcess/ horrid thing filled with bloody/yellow goo ( or was that the alcohol and vaseline soaked in??)...so vet has removed it to a degree but need to go back next week to check the said area ... and to see if there is anymore...yuukkkkkk!!!!!!!!
but you see I am still wondering was it a really hardcore tic and the blood/yellow goo stuff was it's insides?????
anyways thanks everyone
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Aeeeek, the vet would have said had it been a tick. Where the head goes in to the skin, you can normally see part of the head and the legs. On the ones that I have had on my dogs and cats, the head and legs have always been black.
My dog Meggie, a Springer Spaniel, also had a lump about a year ago but it turned out to be a cyst. The vet said to leave it unless it got much bigger, but it eventually went away. I believe some dog breeds are more susceptable to having these lumps than others.
Anyway, I am pleased that you have found out what it is and hope it has cleared up by next week when your dog is due to go back to the vet. :)
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Looking at your first post where you said it 'filled' and grew overnight....well, sounds a very strange abscess to me. I don't doubt your vet for a moment but we have had some vet stories on here that shows some vets work for money and not the welfare of the animal. Anyway, at least you have the 'problem' under view. Good luck.
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I've had a dog grow a sticky girl thingy lumpy spotty type thing. It was caused by a grass seed getting into the skin. Something you wouldn't notice until you see or feel a lump.
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My pregnant dog years ago was limping, so had a look a puss filled boil between her claws,
so with needle opended it up yuck the muck few out to the glass door and a ear of wild corn had got in.
But with a good wash of salt water it healed up fine.
Nice when animals have faith in you to fix them she was a brave little soilder and got a tit bit hee hee.
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Well gang, after reading this thread and almost choking on my cuppa with laughing at Kenkew and Heldi, i would just like to add my 5 pen'orth, if I may.
I used to have a beautiful Staffie and she developed a small lump on her back. The vet told me it might have been caused by a bite from a cat flea (apparently that can happen sometimes) and as it wasn't growing he decided to leave it and we'd keep a close eye on it in case it got bigger. Then she got what we honestly thought at first was a tic between her toes. It was grey and looked exactly like a tic, but we couldn't remove it. We did all the things that we'd been told would make the tic drop off without being forcibly removed, but nothing worked and every time we went to remove it my dog yelped, so as it was almost time for her to have her 'booster injections' we decided to let the vet take a look at it.
To cut a long story short...it turned out to be cancer. The lump on her back was also a slow growing cancerous growth. What had appeared to be a small lump was, in fact, a horrible growth under the skin. The lump on her toe was a nasty type of cancer that was growing very quickly and the vet had no option but to operate to remove her toe (he also cut out the growth from her back).
She was 9 at the time, 3 years later we had to have her put to sleep when she developed cancer in her urinary tract.
So if you're unsure of any lumps on your dogs or cats, please do get the vet to take a look. Not wanting to cause any alarm because it seldom happens, but I'm so pleased that we took my dog to the vet when we did.
Taraven
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(http://static.flickr.com/32/53803346_e92bb372c4.jpg)
I just thought I would send you a lovely holiday picture of my chums and I removing tics in the highlands. They are no big deal right out in the wilds but you get quite a lot where there is a sizable deer population..
Since then I have learned firstly not to dress up like the famouse five when hill walking and secondly to carry a small bottle of surgical spirit and some cotton buds, you dab the tick until it lets go, the head comes out clean and the surgical spirit is an extra protection against infection.
Lymes is a small risk with tics, so its better to aviod them if at all possible (but I do agree that there are a lot of small risks in life and if you avoided them all then the world would be a very dull place).
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Urgh John I'm grossed out!
I remember sitting in my living room one night. I felt something tickling on my collar bone and moving down my chest. I looked down and was absolutely horrified to see a tick making its way across me! I couldn't just flick it so I had to calmly get a tissue and remove it. My hair was standing on end...I'm not good with ticks! I have always assumed it didn't care for my perfume and that is why it hadn't sunk it's teeth in. Oooh it still makes me shudder!
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Not a "tick" story but equally gross and rather embarassing actually.........
Years ago when i had my previous dog,and when i lived in a flat with her for a short time before i got a house and garden,i used to give her marrowbones to chew.Normally i would buy them cooked but occasionally she would have them raw.When they got past their best i would always throw them out.
Somehow one had escaped my eye and ended up under the settee.It only came to light when i looked down one day and saw an army of maggots wriggling out from under the sofa.............yes i had "bred" them in the forgotten bone.
I still shudder now just thinking about it.And i do do my housework regularly,honest,but i had had a very bad back and hadn't moved it out to hoover underneath........
As you might guess,she never saw another bone for a long time afterwards...........