If you have pets, it is essential to keep your fur babies tick-free. These blood-sucking, tiny creatures are well-known for transmitting dangerous diseases, including Lyme disease. Often plants that are a few feet off the ground contain ticks. These insects are known for dropping onto animals that pass through, including your precious dogs or cats.
When petting your little companion, the last thing you want is to find unpleasant ticks attached to them. Therefore, it is best to take the necessary precautionary measures before your furry friend has to go through any unfortunate health issues. Here, we have compiled a few simple tips to help you protect your pets from ticks. So, let’s get started!
Tick Sprays
Tick sprays are a topical application of medication that helps kill ticks quickly. They also offer long-lasting residual protection from ticks. You can use these sprays in between dips and shampoos. Make sure to do so before spending time in wooded locations where these little arachnids are most prevalent.
Remember to keep tick sprays or any other pest-control products away from your pets’ faces while you use them, as this might cause your sweet animal more harm than good.
Treat Your Lawn and House
There are a few things you can actively do to reduce the overall population of ticks and fleas in your backyard. Start with keeping your lawn, trees, and bushes trimmed. Minimizing the areas where these parasites can grow can help you to entirely eradicate their existence near your house.
If the problem still occurs, opt for granular treatments available from your local garden center, veterinarian or pet store, or various yard and household sprays.
While using these sprays, you need to be extra careful about the ingredients used in the products as they can cause immense harm to humans, fish, and other animals. If you are still concerned about mishandling these chemicals, it might be best to hire an exterminator for accurate and safe application.
Check Your Pet(s) for Ticks
Once your pet is finished romping around in the outdoors where ticks and other harmful pests are likely to be lurking, make sure to check them for ticks. Look between the legs, around the neck, in the armpits, inside the ears, between the toes and most importantly, deep in their fur.
If you find ticks on time, you can prevent them from attaching, becoming engorged, and causing severe illnesses in your pet. If you do find even a single tick attached to your pet, immediately and carefully remove every body part of the tick to stop them from spreading.
Tick Collars
One additional preventive product you can use to protect your pets from ticks is a tick collar. While this product is mainly useful for protecting the head and neck from ticks, something is always better than nothing.
Tick collars are required to make contact with the skin of the pet to transfer the chemicals onto their skin and fur. Make sure to cut off any excess collar length to stop your pet from chewing on it. Read the labels carefully, and if you see any signs of discomfort, discontinue use immediately.
Hire Professionals
No pet parent wants to see their furry family member suffering from painful, irritating, and sometimes even life-threatening symptoms associated with being infected by ticks and fleas. That’s why it is essential to take severe pet care measures when it comes to protecting them from these parasites.
The tick control and prevention professionals at Ants Plus have decades of experience with offering safe and effective pest control treatments and solutions to customers! Remember to contact these reliable pest control experts as soon as you see the initial signs of a tick infestation to have its root cause eliminated before the ticks breed and spread quickly.
Shampoos
Bathing your pets with shampoos that contain medicated ingredients can help kill ticks simply through contact. While this method is labor-intensive, it is also a cost-effective way to keep your pets protected during the tick season. It is essential to repeat shampoo treatment every two weeks, as the effects of the tick-control ingredients in these shampoos might not last as long as oral medication.
Spot-On Treatments
You can purchase over the counter medication easily from a pet store, a veterinarian, or even online. These medications are quite effective in controlling both fleas and ticks.
While these medications can help keep harmful, blood-sucking insects at bay for up to a month, pet owners need to be careful when deciding which one to use. Read the label carefully and consult your veterinarian to clear any doubts before going ahead with the application.
Oral Medication
If you are looking for a quick and straightforward solution to your pets’ tick problem, oral medication is the ideal solution for you! Medicines that can help kill both immature fleas and ticks and disrupt their life cycle are readily available in the form of pills and are to be given to the pet once a month.
These medications are easy-to-give, and pet owners don’t have to worry about other clean pets or small children coming into contact with the infected pet immediately after treatment, as they might have to with spot-on treatments. Remember to consult a vet if the problem persists!
While you might already be doing everything to keep your furry companion happy and healthy as a pet owner, tick-borne diseases are quite difficult to treat. Therefore, recognizing and treating any problems at an early stage is essential. If you have already pulled a tick off of your pet, make sure to know what some of the symptoms are.
Hire Ants Plus today to get the most optimized tick protection available and keep your beloved pet safe and happy! We happily serve the greater Central Maine area. Not sure if we provide service in your town? Give us a call!