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

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the Advantix spot-on, which is supposed to be pretty effective against ticks, is dangerous to cats, so we can't risk using that. I do use Frontline sometimes, but the Bravecto and Seresto collars should in theory provide longer-lasting protection, so they seemed worth a try!

It's odd that Rosie, without any protection, seems to be almost immune to them! I suppose she doesn't have an awful lot of hair, as dogs go. Her tummy is quite bald: perhaps ticks prefer a furrier environment.