Dec 31, 2011 – Do You Hear A Ticking?
QUESTION:
I am in Arizona and found a few ticks on my two dogs. One was gray and fat and the other three were clustered together and were small with a brown/blackish color. My other dog had a cluster of something (either a scab or maybe eggs) by its ear with red skin irritation. My question is can ticks lay eggs somewhere on the dog's body too? I know they can lay them in the house, but I want to be sure. This is a new problem. My dogs have never had ticks and I want to get a good jump on them early in the game. I'm about to spray inside and out. Do you have any suggestions for treatment /eradication of dog ticks. Thank you in advance.
ANSWER:
I never say never when it comes to bugs, but it would seem to be highly unusual for the female tick to remain on the dog to deposit her eggs. I looked at a lot of references and scanned the internet and did not come up with any reliable sources that mentioned this possibility. Typically the female engorges during her final stage as the adult, drops off the host animal, and finds some other sheltered place to dump her mass of up to several thousand eggs. The fat gray one you saw was the engorged female and the others could have been males that may have clustered around the female looking for the opportunity to mate. They also could have been nymphs that all just found a good spot to feed, and sometimes ticks do cluster in certain places.
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I am in Arizona and found a few ticks on my two dogs. One was gray and fat and the other three were clustered together and were small with a brown/blackish color. My other dog had a cluster of something (either a scab or maybe eggs) by its ear with red skin irritation. My question is can ticks lay eggs somewhere on the dog's body too? I know they can lay them in the house, but I want to be sure. This is a new problem. My dogs have never had ticks and I want to get a good jump on them early in the game. I'm about to spray inside and out. Do you have any suggestions for treatment /eradication of dog ticks. Thank you in advance.
ANSWER:
I never say never when it comes to bugs, but it would seem to be highly unusual for the female tick to remain on the dog to deposit her eggs. I looked at a lot of references and scanned the internet and did not come up with any reliable sources that mentioned this possibility. Typically the female engorges during her final stage as the adult, drops off the host animal, and finds some other sheltered place to dump her mass of up to several thousand eggs. The fat gray one you saw was the engorged female and the others could have been males that may have clustered around the female looking for the opportunity to mate. They also could have been nymphs that all just found a good spot to feed, and sometimes ticks do cluster in certain places.
Pyrethroids should be effective against ticks, but the problem is getting the active ingredient into the possible places where the female has deposited those eggs. Certainly the best course of action is to inspect pets regularly and remove and kill the ticks immediately when found, crushing them thoroughly or cutting them in half. Their leathery bodies just don't want to die easily. This will prevent the full development of that female which then can wander into some hidden place where you may not find her during the application. She may go behind baseboards or some other obvious place, or she may crawl up into furniture, draperies, clothing, or any other hidden place where an insecticide treatment would not typically be done. This could leave those thousands of eggs available to hatch and the new (hungry) nymphs not exposed to any insecticide material. The eggs may not even hatch for a couple of months, possibly long after any active ingredient you applied has degraded and is ineffective anyhow. Prevention by early detection definitely is the best protocol.
But, if you do feel the need to treat it may need to be repeated a few times to ensure some residual material is still there when those new "seed" ticks, called the larvae, come out of hiding. Using a microencapsulated formulation could extend the residual considerably as well as place those thousands of microscopic capsules where the wandering ticks can gather them up on their bodies as they move about. Thoroughness will be the key for placing active ingredient anywhere the female may end up. It might be useful to place a lot of insect glue traps along the edges of walls to, and inspect these daily when you feel tick activity may begin.
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