Keeping Ticks Off Your Pet

The best way to keep ticks off your pet is to regularly inspect your pet whenever he or she comes in from outdoors, and remove any ticks you might find. You might also want to take a look at our post on keeping ticks out of your yard. In addition, there are a number of products on the market that can be used to discourage and repel these pesky critters, and here's the scoop on that:

If your pet goes outside regularly, you can use some type of residual insecticide. Frontline (fipronil) is a liquid applied to the skin between a dog’s shoulders that discourages ticks from staying or implanting. Revolution (selamectin) is labeled for one kind of tick. A permethrin spray can be used on dogs (but not in cats, for whom it can be fatal) as a tick repellent and killer.

If you use a liquid spray treatment, cats and skittish dogs typically prefer a pump bottle because of the noise from aerosol cans. Avoid topical powders if your pet has a respiratory condition. Powders are fairly easy to apply, but they can make a real mess, and they often contain permethrin. Shampoos are useful only for ticks that are already on your pet.

An amitraz collar, such as PreventicÒ, has some efectiveness against ticks. Like Frontline, amitraz cannot keep all ticks off your pet, but it discourages ticks from implanting or staying on. The collar might be somewhat more water resistant than a residual insecticide, so if your dog likes to swim, the collar might be a better choice.

Flea combs can be used to help remove ticks. Wash your pet’s bed frequently.

Some people use a topical spray, but don’t realize they should not use more than one insecticide or repellent. Doubling the amount of anti-tick product, or using two at once, may cause toxicity problems. DEET, found in many over-the-counter insecticides, is toxic to pets. Any spray insecticide labeled for use on clothing should not be sprayed directly on pets.

Finding And Removing Ticks

The best way to find ticks on your pet is to run your hands over the whole body. Check for ticks every time your pet comes back from an area you know is inhabited by ticks. Ticks attach most frequently around the pet's head, ears, neck, and feet, but are by no means restricted to those areas.



If you find an embedded tick, do not simply grab its body and pull, as the tick's barbed hypostome (feeding tube) may break off and remain in the bite. Applying chemicals or flame to the tick is not a good idea because, while it may make the tick let go, it can also cause the tick to spit blood back into the wound, possibly sending disease germs into the bloodstream in the process.

The best way to remove a tick is to use rubbing alcohol and a pair of hemostats or sharp tweezers. Dab rubbing alcohol on the tick, and then use the hemostats or tweezers to take hold of the tick as close to the dog’s skin as you can; pull slowly and steadily. Try to grab it where its mouth-parts enter the skin and pull gently without letting go. It will eventually releases its hold by withdrawing its barbed mouth-part from the skin.

Try not to leave the tick’s head embedded in the dog’s skin. Do not apply hot matches, petroleum jelly, turpentine, nail polish, or just rubbing alcohol alone (the tick must be pulled out after application of alcohol) because these methods do not remove the ticks and they are not safe for your pet.

Once you have removed a tick, do not try to crush it - unengorged ticks are flat and very hard to crush, while engorged ticks will burst and release blood. Instead, you should flush the tick down a drain or seal it in a jar. (It can be useful to keep the tick to show to a doctor in case you or your pet gets sick from the bite.) Some people kill and preserve ticks by dropping them into bottles of rubbing alcohol; if you do this, do not use the alcohol in that bottle for anything else.

After you pull a tick off, there will be a local area of inflammation that could look red, crusty, or scabby. The tick’s attachment causes irritation. The site can get infected; if the pet is scratching at it, it is more apt to get infected. A mild antibiotic, such as over-the-counter triple antibiotic ointment can help, but usually is not necessary. The inflammation should go down within a week. If it stays crusty and inflamed longer than a week, it might have become infected.

Although ticks can transmit diseases, they are usually nothing more than a nuisance. The best approach is to prevent them from embedding, and once embedded, to remove them quickly. As long as you stay on top of the situation, your pets should cruise right through the tick season with no problems.

sources: Veterinary Partner and Regional Pest Management

Keeping Ticks Out of Your Yard

Deer ticks are most abundant in the woods where hosts for the tick flourish and ticks find high humidity levels necessary for survival. On lawns, most deer ticks (82%) have been recovered within 9 feet of the lawn edge, especially areas adjacent to woods, stonewalls, or ornamental plantings. Fewer ticks are found in the sunny, manicured areas of the lawn. Ticks may also be found in groundcovers such as Pachysandra.

Create a tick safe zone by altering the landscape to increase sunlight, reduce tick habitat and discourage rodent hosts. Create a clearly defined, manicured border. A dry wood chip, tree bark, mulch, or gravel barrier between woods and lawn can reduce tick migration into the lawn. The removal of leaf litter at the lawn perimeter also can help reduce the number of I. scapularis nymphs on the lawn. Landscape modifications include:

• Keep grass mowed.
• Prune trees, mow the lawn, and clear leaf litter and brush, especially along edges of the lawn, stonewalls, and driveways.
• Move play sets away from the woodland edge.
• Restrict groundcover in areas frequented by family.
• Adopt some landscaping practices such as gravel pathways, mulches, decking, stone, tile, and other hardscapes around the home.
• Wildflower meadows, herbal gardens, etc. have very few ticks and may be an acceptable alternative to grass in some areas.

Treating the yard and outdoor kennel area, if any, is an important tool in the arsenal against ticks. There are products containing fenvalerate, that can be used to spray the outdoor area. According to the CDC, Fenvalerate is not harmful to the environment, it is however, toxic to animals, pets, and people, so please use common sense.

The Life Cycle of a Tick

Most types of ticks require three hosts during a two or three year lifespan. Each tick stage requires a blood meal before it can reach the next stage. Hard ticks have four life stages: egg, larva, nymph, and adult. Larvae and nymphs must feed before they detach and molt. Adult female ticks can engorge, increasing their weight by more than 100 fold. After detaching, an adult female tick can lay approximately 3,000 eggs.

Adult females drop off the host to lay eggs after feeding, usually in the fall. During the egg-laying stage, ticks lay eggs in secluded areas with dense vegetation. The eggs hatch within two weeks. Some species of ticks lay 100 eggs at a time, others lay 3,000 to 6,000 per batch.

Eggs hatch into six-legged larvae and overwinter in this larval stage. When spring comes, the larvae move into grass and search for their first blood meal. They attach themselves to their first host, usually a bird or rodent. Later in the summer, engorged larvae fall onto the ground and molt into nymphs, usually in the fall.

Nymphs (which are generally the size of a freckle) remain inactive during winter and start moving again in spring. During the following spring, the nymphs seek out and attach to the second host, usually a rodent, pet, or human.

The nymphs feed on the second host and after this blood meal, fall off the host and molt into adults - off the host - in the late summer or fall. Throughout the autumn, the male and female adults try to find a host, which is again usually a rodent, pet, or human. If adults cannot find a host animal in the fall, they can survive in leaf litter until the spring.

The next spring, adults seek out and attach to a third host, which is usually a larger herbivore, carnivore, or human. The adults feed and mate on the third host during the summer.

The adult female feeds for 8 to 12 days. The female mates while still attached to her host, then both ticks fall off, and the males die. The female remains inactive through the winter and in the spring lays her eggs in a secluded place.

Females may reattach and feed multiple times. The three hosts do not necessarily have to be different species, or even different individuals. Also, humans may serve as first, second or third hosts.

source: Parasites and Health at the Center for Disease Control

What Is A Tick?

Ticks are small parasitic arachnids that live by sucking the blood of mammals, birds, and other animals. Not only a major nuisance to humans and domestic animals, ticks are also responsible for transmitting many diseases, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and ehrlichiosis. Although there are hundreds of tick species, the major species of concern in the United States are the deer tick, the American dog tick, the brown dog tick, the Rocky Mountain wood tick, and the lone star tick.

The deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), also known as the blacklegged tick, lives in the eastern and middle U.S. and also has a close relative on the West Coast. It attacks many animals including humans, deer, and pets. Known for infecting humans with Lyme disease, the deer tick can also transmit human granulocytic ehrlichiosis and babesiosis.

The American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) is found east of the Rockies as well as on the West Coast. It prefers dogs but will also bite humans and other large mammals. It can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever to humans. The brown dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus) lives throughout the U.S., and though it rarely bites humans, it is a highly annoying pest to dogs and other pets. It is not known to transmit disease to humans.

The Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) occurs in the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. and southwestern Canada. It transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever to humans and blood parasites to cattle and dogs. It also can inject dangerous toxins into the host as it feeds.

The lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is found in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States. It has a painful, itchy bite and can transmit ehrlichiosis, tick-borne typhus, and tularemia to humans.

Appearance and habits:

A tick has eight legs, a tiny head, and a flat, seed-shaped body that swells up like a balloon as it feeds. Ticks that are only a few millimeters long before they bite can grow up to half an inch when engorged with blood. Their appearance varies depending on species, sex, and life cycle stage, but they are generally dark-colored, sometimes with distinctive patterns.

In each stage of a tick's life cycle (larva, nymph, and adult) it searches for a host, using its ability to sense heat, light, and carbon dioxide. The tick often crawls to the top of weeds, grass, and other vegetation so that it can grab a passing host animal with its front legs. Once it has grabbed onto a host, it may bite any part of the body but usually prefers to crawl to the top of the host and bite the head, neck, or ears. The tick uses fanglike mouth parts called chelicerae to pierce the skin, and inserts a feeding tube called a hypostome. The hypostome is barbed, making it very hard to remove the tick by pulling. The tick drinks blood until it is full, then drops off the host to molt or lay eggs.

People typically acquire ticks in the spring and summer, while walking through tall grass, woods, and weedy areas. Many ticks can smell animals and are thus attracted to paths and trails where their potential hosts travel. They can also infest homes if carried indoors by pets.

A Horoscope For Your Dog?

Here's something fun for all of you astrology buffs! I found it at Dogscopes on Animal.Discovery.com.

Dogs have feelings too, and are perhaps more in tune with the natural forces than humans. So why shouldn't the potent influence of the celestial forces have just as much impact on their furry little lives? Most of the symbols of astrology are based on animals anyway. If you need proof, just watch your dog's behavior around the full moon. They often feel it even more than humans. Using the time-tested principles of astrology, we hope our dogscopes will bring you and your furry friend even closer together.

* Note: Is your dog's birthday a mystery? If you adopted your dog or just aren't sure which sign to use, try the month your beloved first woofed her way into your life.

Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
This feisty firedog gives new literal meaning to the saying "crash and burn." Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Aries dog wants to be the first dog to do everything.
• The Aries dog is both macho and heroic.
• The Aries dog hates to be kept waiting.
• The Aries dog wants it his way and right away.
• The Aries dog has a lot of chutzpah.
• The Aries dog jumps in face first.
  Read more ...

Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20)
Your Taurus teddy bear likes to move in the slow lane, is a good listener and will never let you down. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• Taurus lives for the good life.
• Taurus is the supreme listener and will never get tired of listening to the same stories over and over again.
• Taurus is the guru of patience.
• Taurus knows that good food comes to those who wait.
• Taurus will never let you down.
• Taurus is the consummate couch potato.
• Taurus cannot be bullied into changing his position on things.
• Taurus loves steady routine.
• Taurus knows there is nothing worth rushing for.
• Taurus needs a slow tempo and a large dog bowl.
  Read more ...

Gemini (May 21 - Jun 21)
The Gemini pup is the Paris Hilton of the dog world -- the ultimate trendsetter, wants to be in the know and is eternally youthful. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Gemini dog wants to run around town with you.
• The Gemini dog needs to be in the know.
• The Gemini dog wants you to be their twin.
• The Gemini dog loves newspapers, magazines, and TV.
• The Gemini dog is eternally youthful.
• The Gemini dog likes to play games with you and trick you.
• The Gemini dog is the ultimate trendsetter of the zoo-diac.
  Read more ...

Cancer (Jun 22 - Jul 22)
There's no place like home for this sensitive pup and being "mommied" is what this cuddle bug needs most. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• Cancer dogs need to be cuddled.
• Cancer dogs need to be mommied.
• Cancer doggies say "home is where the heart is."
• Cancers dogs need home-cooked food.
• Cancer dogs need you to remember their birthday and your anniversary.
• Cancer dogs have memories like an elephant-they never forget.
• Cancer dogs are extremely sensitive to harsh words-so speak sweetly and softly.
• Cancer dogs don't always like other dogs unless they're equally as sensitive.
  Read more ...

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22)
If anyone should be dripping with diamonds, it's your super-glam furry Goddess. Leo dogs live for the limelight and a 5-star lifestyle. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Leo dog needs an audience.
• The Leo dog lives for the limelight.
• The Leo dog loves affection, attention, praise and a big fan club.
• The Leo dog needs to live a 5-star lifestyle like the royalty she is.
• The Leo dog needs to be adored.
• The Leo dog needs to rule your world.
  Read more ...

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
A clean environment and a simple life is all that the Virgo dog needs to stay happy. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Virgo dog needs a clean dog dish.
• The Virgo dog wants the vitamin supplements.
• The Virgo dog loves a minimalist environment to keep his mind uncluttered.
• The Virgo dog wants a simple life.
• The Virgo dog loves order and routine.
• The Virgo dog likes things pristine.
• The Virgo dog worries when things get chaotic.
  Read more ...

Libra (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
This partner-oriented pooch is the most optimisic of all the signs -- everything is beautiful, peaceful and balanced. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Libra dog loves to have an equal partner to do everything with.
• The Libra dog has an innate sense of fair play.
• The Libra dog loves all things beautiful.
• The Libra dog needs the scales to be perfectly balanced.
• The Libra dog needs social events with beautiful pooches and people.
• The Libra dog needs peace at any price. The Libra dog is all sweetness and light.
• The Libra dog needs attention.
• The Libra dog needs to please others.
• The Libra dog needs charm.
  Read more ...

Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
This dog is intense! Scorpio pups like high intensity, loyalty and can see right through your every motive. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Scorpio dog demands loyalty.
• The Scorpio dog is all or nothing.
• The Scorpio dog sees right through your every motive.
• The Scorpio dog wants all the dirt.
• The Scorpio dog needs you to go to hell and back to prove your love.
• The Scorpio dog needs lots of reassurance that you're eternally devoted.
• The Scorpio dog needs the intensity level turned up.
  Read more ...

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
Fun-loving, goofy, clumsy and adventurous are just a few of the terms used to describe this free-spirit! Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Sagittarius dog needs the open air convertible rides.
• The Sagittarius dog needs constant excitement and greener pastures.
• The Sagittarius dog needs to bark it like it is.
• The Sagittarius dog needs positivity and joy.
• The Sagittarius dog needs the carnival and the parades.
• The Sagittarius dog needs rainbows to chase and dreams to dream.
• The Sagittarius dog needs to travel long distances.
• The Sagittarius dog needs freedom.
• The Sagittarius dog loves to explore, know and understand.
  Read more ...

Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19)
What some consider the Donald Trump of the canine world, this dog needs your respect, to be in control, to feel accomplished and a fat bank account. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Capricorn dog needs to feel very accomplished.
• The Capricorn dog needs to feel in control.
• The Capricorn dog needs a sense of status.
• The Capricorn dog needs a fat bank account.
• The Capricorn dog needs security and simplicity.
• The Capricorn dog needs to feel like the head honcho.
• The Capricorn dog needs respect.
  Read more ...

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
This dog will definitely shake up your life with an eccentric, erratic and high-strung personality. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Aquarius dog needs to shake up the status quo.
• The Aquarius dog wants a wild troupe of doggie and people friends.
• The Aquarius dog needs dreams and goals to chase.
• The Aquarius dog likes to experiment and come up with new crazy inventions.
• The Aquarius dog likes to shock your socks off.
• The Aquarius dog wants freedom at all cost.
• The Aquarius dog loves surprises.
  Read more ...

Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20)
The dreamer of the zodiacs, this pooch often lives in fantasy land, thriving on chaos and living in a very imaginative world. Here's a Personality Snapshot:

• The Pisces dog loves to escape reality.
• The Pisces dog could sleep for 3 days straight.
• The Pisces dog lives in their own fairy tale world.
• The Pisces dog thrives in chaos.
• The Pisces dog is here to give unconditional love and compassion.
• The Pisces dog is a psychic sponge and will absorb all the energy in the home.
• The Pisces dog takes on all of your mannerisms.
• The Pisces dog empathizes with everyone.
• The Pisces dog wants to merge with everyone and everything. All is one.
  Read more ...

Want to know more? You can also visit Doggie's Paradise for a free horoscope reading based on the age, sex, and birth sign of your pet.

Help Wanted

We are currently accepting applications for a dependable groomer here at Heavenly Pets. The right candidate will have 3 years professional grooming experience.

Experience in all breeds and hand scissoring are a must. Creative grooming a plus. Quality over quantity is stressed. You must have your own equipment. Naturally, we require that you be reliable, and enjoy working with animals.

Do not respond to this ad via the web. If you have questions, give us a call at 816-358-7387, or simply stop by the shop and fill out an application. We want to hear from you in person.

How To Groom A Rabbit

Here at Heavenly Pets, we do not groom rabbits. However, it's Easter, and we thought it might be informative and interesting to post this video about grooming rabbits so that if you have a rabbit of your own that needs grooming, you'll know how to do it.