HOW TO REMOVE TICKS

Thanks to INSTRUCTABLES

(it's flea and tick season again!)

I will demonstrate how to easily remove a tick from your dog without pulling it out. The tick will crawl out on it's own and you won't have to deal with 'did I get it all out?'. This sounds like a magic trick and you might even think it is, I did. My sister inlaw had been telling me how to do it for quite a while and I just never tried it, because I didn't think it would work. One day when I was at the vet getting my dogs their yearly shots, my vet found a tick and removed it using this method and I was sold.

I easily remove about 20 ticks a year from my two dogs. When I used the old way, which was get your tweezers as close to the head of the tick and pull straight out, it would often leave parts of the tick behind. Ticks seem to like areas near the eyes and ears, which would leave marks and scars that wouldn't ever go away.

So how do you do it?

Rub the tick in a circular motion and pretend you're trying to make the tick dizzy. I generally stick with one direction, clockwise. It usually takes less than a minute, so if it's not working, make sure the body of the tick is moving around. Remember you can't get dizzy unless you're actually moving in a circle, quickly. I doubt the tick actually gets dizzy, but they sure don't like something about the movement and they crawl out on their own.