I've had a tick on me twice, once in Florida, once in NY. No illnesses noted, but it's certainly unpleasant to find them, since they don't hurt when they bite and can be attached to you for a while. However, my dog was diagnosed with Lyme which she acquired before I adopted her and put her on flea and tick prevention. This was upsetting - it didn't have to happen, but for lack of medication. It cost about $500 to treat so far and it should be noted that ticks who carry Lyme also carry other bacterial illnesses that need to be addressed if your dog tests positive. While most dogs beat Lyme on their own, that's no excuse not to use prevention, and dogs who test positive could get sick later in life. For dogs like mine, the infection was taking hold. She had no symptoms but those can happen later. Worse, some dogs go into kidney failure, which is fatal. In 6 months we test her Lyme numbers again and see if the medication worked. It was 30 days of pills, 2 pills, twice daily - not pleasant for human or dog. I have confidence my dog will be OK but it's a lifetime worry, even with the medication. Use prevention! Don't pick ticks off your dog when you can give the dog prevention to stop it from happening in the first place! And you don't squish ticks because you should save them for identification purposes if someone gets sick. Put them in a jar of alcohol.
I've had a tick on me twice, once in Florida, once in NY. No illnesses noted, but it's certainly unpleasant to find them, since they don't hurt when they bite and can be attached to you for a while. However, my dog was diagnosed with Lyme which she acquired before I adopted her and put her on flea and tick prevention. This was upsetting - it didn't have to happen, but for lack of medication. It cost about $500 to treat so far and it should be noted that ticks who carry Lyme also carry other bacterial illnesses that need to be addressed if your dog tests positive. While most dogs beat Lyme on their own, that's no excuse not to use prevention, and dogs who test positive could get sick later in life. For dogs like mine, the infection was taking hold. She had no symptoms but those can happen later. Worse, some dogs go into kidney failure, which is fatal. In 6 months we test her Lyme numbers again and see if the medication worked. It was 30 days of pills, 2 pills, twice daily - not pleasant for human or dog. I have confidence my dog will be OK but it's a lifetime worry, even with the medication. Use prevention! Don't pick ticks off your dog when you can give the dog prevention to stop it from happening in the first place! And you don't squish ticks because you should save them for identification purposes if someone gets sick. Put them in a jar of alcohol.