WOW, quite a few responses and some a bit strange I might add
.
Anyhow, being that I am Dr HappyDawg
I will give you my honest assessment of your particular situation and you can send me whatever amount of money for payment as you see fit for my marvelous advice this morning
:
1) Calm down and make yourself a drink (something strong for you Ms SunnyH I'm guessing
)
2) Small tick = baby tick and likely has not engorged itself of your fubabies' blood
3) Surgical ear cleaning is required immediately - soap & water, then rubbing alcohol should be sufficient though
4) Never and I will repeat it again, NEVER kill a tick with anything other than an empty glass jar with a lid. Use a pair of tweezers to pull the tick off and drop it into an empty glass jar and close the lid. PRESTO! This will insure that any ticks you have pulled off your pets is not crawling around your house or back yard anymore.
If you use Frontline or store bought tick stuff in a vial, place the 'empty' vial with it's remaining liquid in the glass jar with the tick(s). The tick will die eventually without the leftover liquid med, but if you have it, they will die sooner.
Also, ANYONE who has ever tried to stomp a fully engorged tick can attest to the fact that it is not a pretty sight to behold
!!! And sometimes when you try to kill a tick, they actually get away (they're small and they're fast JMHO). Ticks can last inside a closed glass jar for awhile and keeping in a jar allows you to ID them later if any symptoms do occur.
On a more serious note, my sweet Shammy who lived outside for months had probably a hundred ticks on him when he was finally rescued back in 2001. These ticks were in all stages of embedment on his body and he has survived this ordeal just fine
.
I myself am more bothered by the medication on the dogs than the ticks themselves
. Every where my dogs lay in the house and car, they leave an oily stain from the Frontline for several days after the application
. If you really think about it, Frontline and other products like it are supposed to make the tick not want to 'bite' down on the dog or cat. This doesn't mean that the tick does not still jump on the animal for the ride and when they decide to get off, they just jump onto something in our homes or onto us
. Heck, I've seen them walking around my house and realized that the medication was working, but now I was the ticks' target
!
Oops, medical emergency - got to RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
!