hello, this morning i noticed a large lump on the dogs neck - on the loose skin under his chin - when i felt it it was hard and had what looked like a skin tag sticking out.  I realised it was a tic and went to PAH for one of those green hook things and it came out whole.  I cant get an appointment with the vet until monday morning but I am worried about the lump.  Does anyone know if lumps are usual with ticks.  Ive bathed it with antiseptic, its not bleeding or anything and there is only a small pink mark where the tic was attached.  Any advice greatly appreciated.

The lump is normal and should go down in a few days. It's nothing to worry about. Where do you walk your dog? If there are deer in the area I would ask your vet about Lyme's disease. It's not very common, but you should be aware of it. My dogs are walked where we have a lot of deer and we regularly get ticks. We've not had a case of Lyme's but still check for ticks regularly (after every walk) :)

thanks for your reply, we have had two days out this week with the kids being off school, the first one was to Kielder, and the second was to Barnard Castle, so Im not sure where he picked them up - ive just found another on his groin area.  We live in Sunderland, (north east) and have not had any before.

Lindylou,  Do you know how long tics stay on the dog, is there any chance that there might be any crawling around the house?  Do you know if frontline stops them from going on dogs altogether?

Frontline wont stop them going onto the dog but will kill them quiet quickly

thanks, do you still have to pull the horrible things out with fronline or do they just drop off?

Once they are dead they should just drop off. I prefer to remove them, then put them on the fire! (I have a coal fire ;) ) The thought of them crawling over the dogs and then sucking blood off them just turns my stomach :) I've just removed one from my pup's 'elbow' region. Yuck.

Not sure if this is 100% correct but was told a tic gorges itself from a host, falls off, but must find another host in 3 weeks time, gorges again, drops off and then dies. How long they take to fill up with the hosts blood I do not know. The one thing I do know for certain is they are horrible creatures.

Margaret

as for how long the tics are on the host... i have just found out that answer, the hard way. whilst walking kai last monday in the far north of scotland, he managed to pic up a cpl of tics that werent found till a cpl of days after ( too small to find in long hair :-( ) i dealt with them and thoroughly checked him over for more or so i thought. today after a little scratching session in the kitchen we noticed blood on the floor, on closer inspection we found a burst tic, seems after 7/8 days of feeding the tic had come off with the scratching. how we had not found it whilst it was still on kai i dont know,it was big, maybe it was hiding under his collar.
we will certainly be checking more thoroughly from now on.... yukky things they are :-)

We get them regulary as our caravan site is near a sheep field, so frontlined he was, and still the little buggers got on him, SO a cunning plan was put into operation, and I bought a Tea Tree and eucylyptous oil flee/tick collar! worked a treat, so when we go up there we  smell like Boots the chemist but it works and not a tick in sight!:)

Oh that sounds brilliant. Where did you buy it?

Yes, I'd like some of those collars - foul disgusting creatures (the ticks, not the dogs!) :-)

Oh, I don't know. My house is stinking at the moment 'cos the dogs found something 'nice' to roll in ;) I think I would definately say they are discusting!! :D

If you try the search engine Google and type in Tree Free Tick collars it come up with several listing, sorry cant be of much more help "Senior moments!", or you can buy them in Pets At Home.
HTH.

Good point Lindylou! And thanks Hairydog, I will have a look. :-)

re tea tree collars
could you not just apply a few drops of tea tree to the dogs exsisting collar ? wouldnt that work just aswell .... only ask as the collars ive found seem to be around £3 each and only last for about 4 mths, which is ok but i dont want to end up with lots of collars. :-)