The tick season is in full bloom, unfortunately. I hate these creepy arachnids and I do my best to protect my dogs from them.
Sadly, there is no preparations that protect from ticks 100%. (This is another subject but I’m not a vet and not going to share my opinion on what works and what does not).
Even though you do everything you can to prevent ticks in your dog, occasionally you might be forced to remove them from your furry friend. (If you are afraid to do that, which is totally fine, ask your vet to do that).
Never use regular tweezers as they can squeeze a tick and cause it to “vomit” the blood it sucked back to your dog body, which can result in tickborne disease.
Over the years I’ve removed several ticks from dogs, not only from mine, but also friends’ dogs. I’ve had a chance to test various tick removal tools and would like to share with you my subjective review.
TICK REMOVER CARD
For years it was my no. 1. Unfortunately it works best with ticks which fed from a dog for quite a while and are already quite big. I wasn’t able to remove a very small tick with it.
Also it is hard to use on tiny dogs.
My rating: 7/10.
TICK LASSO PEN
I tried. Believe me, I tried. I wasn’t able to use it on a dog. Maybe it works OK with humans, but I found it useless with a hairy dog. Perhaps with a short-haired dog it could do its job, but definitely not with a dog with medium to long hair.
My rating: 1/10
TICK REMOVAL TOOL
This is my number one. I got the set of two, smaller one works great with small ticks. Haven’t used the larger one yet and I hope I won’t need to. First I thought it is pointless to sell these in sets of two but when I inspected them I understood the idea.
My rating: 9/10
FLEA COMB
This is not a tick removal tool, but it is great to remove ticks from your dog’s hair. I got one from my vet when I complained about my Plaster being a tick magnet. Seriously, he attracts them like Leo DiCaprio females under 30!
This comb is very thick and removes even tiny ticks. I use it after every walk in the forest and highly recommend getting one yourself. It is better to remove ticks crawling on your dog than remove them from your dog’s body.