Flea and Tick prevention. Use it.

[jedimaster91]

I've been volunteering at our humane society's spay/neuter clinic. It's a great place where the surgery is MUCH cheaper than at the vet's office. In fact, I got Ziggy spayed, microchiped, and an extra dose of pain meds for the low cost of $72. Awesome. Most of the dogs and cats they get are from owners like me taking advantage of lower prices and other humane societies in the area. They also have a feral cat program. Most of the owned pets--and even animals coming from other shelters--are well cared for. However, there is occasionally an owner we'd all like to smack upside the head. Today two dogs came in COVERED with ticks. Have you ever seen a bloated, fat, happy tick? They were EVERYWHERE on these poor dogs. The vet techs pulled off as many as they could find before surgery and I pulled more than a few while I had them in recovery. Now, I expect that dogs who spend any time outside will occasionally come in with a tick. The little buggers are everywhere. But this was insane. Apparently, these two are outside dogs. My dogs are outside dogs as well, but I've never found a tick on either of them. Know why? Because I shell out for tick prevention meds (K9 Advantix FTW) and I check my dogs now and then to make sure they don't have any hitchikers. I just hope the poor things aren't anemic and/or pick up some kind of disease from the ticks.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

In fact, I got Ziggy spayed, microchiped, and an extra dose of pain meds for the low cost of $72. Awesome. (

Itchy and Scratchy's vet pays your pet $75.

[AnaKhouri]

Ew, bloated ticks are the most disgusting things ever. Poor dogs.

[LillFilly]

Oh, disgusting!

And ticks can drain a dog dry! At the least they can get anemia.

Watching animal cops there's been several dogs that died from tick infestation; I think one might have had almost 1lb of them!

[RootedPhoenix]

Watching animal cops there's been several dogs that died from tick infestation; I think one might have had almost 1lb of them!

That poor dog! How awful.

[BlaqueKatt]

our local humane society spayed both our cats for $26 a piece-they don't do microchiping though....

[fireheart]

I can't even remember what desexing and microchipping cost for both of our two. We had ours done through our vet though.

I do remember that before we were due to get our younger cat desexed, the two of them were having a grooming session and the elder cat's tongue went towards a certain area...
And post-desexing, it took them three days to get reacquainted with one another (it took them 3 days when we first bought the younger one home)

[RxBoy]

In my state animal control would have the owner arrested if their dog was covered in ticks and they did nothing. It's considered abuse and neglect.

[Arucard]

Ticks are nasty. I have a habit of stopping and picking up any stumpy lizards (In Australia) that I see on/by the road, taking them home, removing all the ticks from them, feeding them, then taking them back to where I picked them up (very important. They mate for life, and live in about a 1km radius area for that whole time).

[fireheart]

Ticks are nasty. I have a habit of stopping and picking up any stumpy lizards (In Australia) that I see on/by the road, taking them home, removing all the ticks from them, feeding them, then taking them back to where I picked them up (very important. They mate for life, and live in about a 1km radius area for that whole time).

Just a note, by "stumpy lizards" he means stumpy-tailed lizards. basically, the butt looks like the head sans facial features.

Also, Arucard, does that apply to blue-tongues? We seem to have one in our garden, along with a few babies...not a huge issue for us as they eat all of our snails.

[Seshat]

SQUEEE!

We had a blue-tongue that lived under our house. Then we moved. I miss him.

[AccountingDrone]

We have guina fowl, they are great at eating ticks and other small bugs [well so are the chickens] so the advantix is barely needed. i can't think of how long it has been since we found any ticks on Souage - maybe 5 or 6 years

[fireheart]

SQUEEE!

We had a blue-tongue that lived under our house. Then we moved. I miss him.

The first time my dad caught it, I got to hold it. Wearing gloves of course.

Then we found a baby. Did the same thing.

Best part was, when we went to this animal barn with my little cousins from interstate and their parents, there was a blue-tongue in its habitat. The keeper came up, grabbed the blue tongue out and placed it on my shoulder, facing backwards

[Ironclad Alibi]

We use flea and tick prevention religiously, but, alas, we were struck down by a tick. We found a drunken tick on our older dog (about 15 years old). We figured the anti-tick pills he had been taking did their job. He had cataracts. We found out there are vets that do cataract surgery on dogs. So we hurried over, had him evaluated, and had his eyes fixed. His vision seemed to improve for about a week, then went downhill fast.

Subsequent examination by the vet, and some blood tests, revealed that he had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Apparently he got it from that tick. The infection attacked his weakened eyes, and he is now blind. It turns out the Rocky Mountain spotted fever is most prevalent in the SE US, where we are, but vets don't test for it.

But 2½ years later, the little guy is still going strong despite being blind and deaf.

[tropicsgoddess]

OMG..... doesn't that equate to animal abuse or cruelty to leave your animals with a boatload of ticks and fleas on them?!! If you can't afford the tubes of flea/tick meds, then get some good flea/tick shampoo or spray at least!