Ticks : three different dogs, two tick treatments and a control...

[bunn]

I gave Brythen a Bravecto tablet, which is supposed to offer three months defence against fleas and ticks.  It upset his stomach a bit.   Rosie would not eat hers, even when it was chopped up and mixed with lamb, although I think she may have eaten a tiny bit of it, she definitely didn't get more than a small dose.

Because of this, I got foster Carlos a Seresto collar instead. Seresto is widely used in southern Europe where ticks are much more of a problem than they are here, and is supposed to be very effective.

I had to knock a couple of crawling ticks off Brythen the other day, but generally he seems to stay tick-free.  Carlos, on the other hand, is a magnet for them: the other day in the woods, even with him wearing his seresto collar,  I ended up knocking more than 10 crawling ticks off him (they are very visible against his pale fur) and he still got one that attached and had to be removed with a ticktool.

 Rosie, also with pale fur, without any tick protection at all, continues completely tick-free.  I'm guessing this is why Science makes all that fuss about sample sizes...

I am fairly sure that it's not that Rosie is taking different routes or jumping more than Carlos -- although she is faster and covers a lot more ground. But the ticks appear on Carlos even on-lead when we are all walking along the same path.

 My current theory is that Carlos, being entire, and from the look of him, probably with some GSD and staffie in his mix to go with the majority greyhound component, is just that bit smellier than Rosie (Saluki/whippet/grey, I think), and so the ticks are attracted to him more than they are to her.

The happy tick-magnet himself.


And being surprised by younger, swifter dogs...



I don't think it's *just* that ticks fall off Rosie because of her sheer velocity.... :-D

Comments

[topum.livejournal.com]

I must be really smelly. I pulled out 14 out of my legs and 3 out of my arms after I walked in the wrong place in my shorts in Moldova.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

:-D I think the Moldovan ticks must have different habits to the ones I am used to here, ours are deer ticks and the deer carry them all over the woods, we don't seem to get identifiable breeding grounds so much.

They are supposed to prefer deer and sheep, so perhaps poor Carlos smells more sheepy than the other dogs!

[topum.livejournal.com]

The Moldovan ones are super sensitive to dryness we were told so there are almost none of them in well aired places that also get some sun during the day. But there are a lot of them in a couple of shaded damp places at the northern edge of the forest.