What NOT to Do
People have thought up a lot of innovative ways to kill ticks, from putting nail polish or Vaseline on them in the hope of suffocating them so they'll gasp and fall off (which is hardly likely to work since ticks breathe only a few times an hour) to touching their little rears with a hot match head. Never, never do that. There is no better way to make sure you cause the tick to vomit infected saliva right into the dog.
Don't even handle them with your bare hands. Restrain the urge to just yank one off. If you have an unhealed cut or abrasion on one of your hands and any of an infected tick's body fluids get in there, you could be infected, too. If your hands are just fine, you still run the risk of squeezing the tick's saliva into the dog.
A tick that is not engorged has probably not had a chance to infect the dog. Male ticks, however, cannot swell up as impressively as females because their anatomy makes it impossible; as a result, they sip instead of gorging themselves. So, don't assume because the tick isn't huge that it hasn't been dining.
The Right Way to Remove a Tick
Use a tool specifically made for removing ticks, a pair of sharp tweezers (not blunt ones) or a small pair of curved forceps.
Grab the tick right behind the head, i.e., as close to the skin as you can get, and PULL SLOWLY - STRAIGHT OUT. Don't twist the tick, it isn't made to unscrew. The tick's hypostome, the part that penetrates the dog, has barbs like fishhooks, so slow, easy and straight out is the way you want to go.
The Australian Paralysis Tick webpage is a great place to learn about the tick's anatomy. You'll find out there that the tick doesn't really have what we would call a head; it has mouthparts attached to a basal ring. You can take a look at them over there to the right.
Get the head out if you can. Use a needle much as you would to remove a splinter. There's some evidence that there are antigens in the cement plug that anchors the tick so remove the tick as soon as possible, even if it's not engorged, and the cement plug with it.
Images of, and recommendations for removing, the Paralysis Tick are here on the Tick Alert Group Support (TAGS) website (Australia). See also their page on Tick Removal Tools.
Evaluation of three commercial tick removal tools was done at the Ohio State Acarology Lab. "Three inexperienced users randomly removed attached American dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis ) and lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum L.), from laboratory rabbits in a university animal facility. Tick damage occurring from removal and quantity of attachment cement were compared. No tool removed nymphs without damage and all tools removed adults of both species successfully. American dog ticks proved easier to remove than lone star ticks, whose mouthparts often remained in the skin. Nymphal ticks were consistently removed more successfully with commercial tools when compared to tweezers."
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