My Dog and His Tick

That's right, I said tick.

We took Pump to the park the other day to hang out with his dog friends and he came back dirty and with a couple of scratches from jumping through the trees and leaves and general undergrowth. The park, while it has a nicely paved walkway, is not what you would exactly call 'tamed.' So we didn't take note of the little brown mark on his belly right away, figuring he would get a bath in a day or two. But then I saw it again yesterday and it was markedly larger, so I took a closer look, and it was a tick! Nasty!

Have you ever removed a tick from anything? It's gross and vaguely disturbing. According to the instructions I read, and now according to my experience, one takes a pair of tweezers to the tick, as close to the skin of the subject as possible, squeezes tightly but not too tightly (this is the hardest instruction to follow - what exactly is not too tightly?! - how strong is a tick's body??), and pulls slowly until the sucker comes off.

Now I can't say how strong ticks are in general, so I don't know if this little guy had super-strength or what, but he was holding on like his life depended on it (which it did, I realize as I write this sentence). A couple of times my grip slipped - remember, tightly but not too tightly(!?) - but I just grabbed him again and on the third try he popped cleanly off. No broken pieces were visible and the area looked clean. The tick is now residing in a ziploc bag to show to the vet.

And through all of this, the Pump was a champ! Even as I was pulling his skin up with the tweezers, he didn't whimper once, he didn't try to shake free of Margo's grip, nothing! This dog has nerves of steel! Even as I was sweating and holding my breath from nervousness, he was just laying there with his head upside down, looking around like this was all completely normal.

We learned through subsequent research into his Frontline medicine that it does not prevent fleas and ticks from getting onto him, but it kills them once they're on him. This could explain why the tick was not moving at all during this ordeal or afterwards. This made us all feel a little better.

I mean, really, who needs this? Spoon, indeed.