Our 4 month old puppy had a tiny tick yesterday. We removed it with a tick remover and my husband is positive it all came out. Today puppy has a lump at the site about the size of a very large pea.

Any suggestions as to what we can do, will it just go down or does he need something to help. We have heard of dogs developing mast cell tumours at the site of tick bites (don't know if that is the proven cause or not).

Our older dogs pick up ticks all the time but we have never seen this sort of reaction before. Any ideas welcome.

Probably just a re-action to the tick saliva.  One of my girls gets a pea sized lump for about a week after removing a tick everytime but the swelling always goes away.

It sometimes depends on how quickly you remove the tick but I have one dog that rarely reacts and another that usually gets a lump.  It's never caused any problems though.

If you can remember spray a bit of dilute hibiscrub on the site before you remove the tick and rub a bit of antiseptic on afterward.

> One of my girls gets a pea sized lump for about a week after removing a tick everytime but the swelling always goes away

Yes - this seems quite a common thing, but always goes away :)

Again all I can add is that some do others don't react. All of my Flatties have had this reaction and as we live in a tick infested area we need to get protection on as soon as they appear each year. The Labs on the other hand just have them removed and you wouldn't know they had had a visitor.

All mine get a little lump after tick removal, not usually pea sized though. If you're sure you got the whole head out, just keep the area clean and keep an eye on it, it'll probably be fine.

Thanks for all your suggestions, the lump has gone down now.

Has anyone heard of the link with mast cell tumours and tick bites?