The Tick Thread

What’s everybody seeing for ticks? As of early June 2024, we’ve had prime tick weather.

In my yard in the central-south metro I’m seeing(FINDING on myself and the dog) quite a few. Lots of dog/wood tick variety, and a few deer ticks. Was recently up in the longville area and I found a few big ole plain old dog ticks on myself and the dog. I guess the non-deer tick varieties can also host a fair amount of unpleasant diseases.

As I’m sure some of you here know, the st croix river valley has a disgustingly high number of deer ticks— which are the biggest Lyme disease hosts — and my hunting cabin falls in the worst spot for that. I almost don’t even want to hunt that area this fall.

It would be interesting to get consistent tick reports from all areas of MN and even neighboring states as the season progresses.

In fact just found one on my beer bottle and one on my leg as I typed this up in my yard. Little tank buggers!

Yuck. I hate ticks. Mosquito hatch is thick right now too with all the rain.

Keep the dog treated for them. You might consider using permethrin on your clothing too.

I hear you, gim. Things are nasty. They are technically arachnids(spider family, eight legged), as I’m sure you know. They don’t creep me out too much but the diseases they can transmit certainly do…

I’ve mentioned it before in hunting threads, but every fall weekend of grouse hunting up there I will pull 80-120 of them off my dog, while maybe 8-10 are found on me(all deer ticks, most being nymphs or sub-adults, which apparently are much more dangerous for some reason).

I hope I’m wrong, but this fall could be incredibly worse at this rate.

I’m sure the fake winter is playing a role here. The lack of cold temps pretty much all winter and virtually no snow is probably exactly what they need during those months.

What do you use on your dog for bug/tick prevention? I still use the monthly topical application. I know it can be a mess and it stinks for a day or two, but it’s effective.

I’ve taken about a dozen off me, but only 2 bit in. All what were what we call “wood” ticks, no “deer” ticks.

I’ve tried just about everything but have come to the conclusion that summer in/near the woods or just outside in general is going to be accompanied by ticks

I’ve used Bravecto in the past, moved to Nexgard Plus with the newish dog (they had him on in at the kennel, tolerates it well). No issues with ticks on the dog in years.

Fall hunting my whole crew duct tapes pants cuffs, makes sure t-shirts are tucked in. One of the youngster was griping about ticks on his torso, finally figured out the old guys weren’t getting them and were tucking in t-shirts. He started to tuck and the torso tick issue went away. Doesn’t solve every issue with the little creepers but helps.

My understanding is that the tick has to actually bite the dog for those prescriptions to work. It does nothing to repel them in the first place.

My dog comes in the house regularly and I don’t want her carrying a bunch of ticks in. My wife would freak out if she saw those things.

Few weeks ago picnic launch on Winnie I found several crawling on me.

Around the city nada, and camping down in lake city last weekend yielded none.

gim wrote:

My understanding is that the tick has to actually bite the dog for those prescriptions to work. It does nothing to repel them in the first place.

My dog comes in the house regularly and I don’t want her carrying a bunch of ticks in. My wife would freak out if she saw those things.

Same situation at my house. Thankfully we don’t have too many ticks at home, by the time I get back from training or hunting the ticks have chomped the dog and croaked. A quick brush when he get gets out of the crate takes care of the carcasses. I usually find several when I am hosing out the crate.

I live right across from Osceola along the river valley, and with three dogs walked through the long grass daily and a DVM spouse I see a fair amount of ticks. The deer ticks were out in force for April/early May and now it’s transitioned to more “normal” levels of primarily wood ticks. Still will see the occasional deer ticks, but not as bad as earlier this year. My wife was finding ticks on dogs all winter long, anytime it’s above 32F they can be out.

Our dogs do transport ticks into the house, but between Simparica or Nexgard any tick that actually bites the dogs will die. We prefer chewable tick prevention for the dogs, doesn’t seem like the topicals maintain efficacy.

Been as worse as I recall here in SE MN. We have 2 dogs and our long haired Aussie has brought in about 5-6 already into the house. I’m no tick expert but these things were the size of a corn kernal. He has tested positive for lymes before and again today. He has had seizures in the past and I can only assume it is related.

Our senior Doberman has never tested positive but I am pretty sure she has had it too and it pretty much crippled her for weeks so we take no chances.

Now I know why the wife sent me to bring the dogs in after seeing the bill for the Bravecto and Heartworm meds

The older ticks have a better chance of carrying a disease. The only thing worse about the young ones is they are harder to spot.

We just use the oral admin frontline/generic stuff, alondmg with the heart worm med around the first of each month. Have in the past used the liquid topical and the bravecto/frontline collar but shied away because she tends to go all over the house and cuddle-sleep in our beds. I’m sure they are effective though. With the thousand or so ticks I’ve picked off her(30-40% imbedded) I think what we’re using is working. Plus I’ve noticed the ticks I’ve found imbedded in her more than 16-24 hrs later have all been dead and dried up already.

Yeah I don’t mess with repellants too much. Have some dog shampoo that has the classic “herbal, poison free” ingredients like clover, peppermint and whatnot… garbage. Same with mice- if they’re determined to get in and live somewher, they will. Unless you mechanically trap them or can spruce up the deterrents regularly, I suppose, near worthless IMO.

I will occasionally use permethrin spray on my external clothing when doing some cutting/trimming/walking on the hunting property, but won’t use it on my dog or even her hunting vest. Nasty stuff, or so I’ve heard.

“The older ticks have a better chance of carrying a disease. The only thing worse about the young ones is they are harder to spot.”

Ok yeah that makes a lot of sense. Just thought I read that on one of the dnr pages.

Nexgard is what I meant, not frontline.

They seem pretty thick around my house in Carlton. We for the most part don’t have them around the house but this year I have got them right around my deck. 5 so far and I have not set foot in the woods. I picked up some Sevin and sprayed around the house and deck with hopes of keeping them from getting in the house and on me.

I sprayed my whole yard and the woods in back as good as I could with permethrin. Kills the misquitos and havent seen a tick in weeks and they were bad.

Seemed about the usual last weekend in St. Louis County, found 4 regular ones on me that I’m sure the dogs track in. They don’t bother me much because I always feel them crawling before they bite, I don’t even remember the last time I had one attached. I still check a couple times a day to be sure though when at the cabin.

gim wrote:

You might consider using permethrin on your clothing too.

+1 on permethrin. I spent 8 days in the bwca (got back last week) and didn’t spray bug spray once on the entire trip. That is now 19 days in a row between my last 3 bwca trips in May/June where I didn’t use bug spray one time nor did I pick up any ticks. Big believer in permethrin based on my bwca experiences with it.

I joke with my Physician that “if you haven’t caught Lymes, you’re not in the woods enough”. I’ve had it twice and almost lost a dog to Anaplasmosis until I found a Vet that could treat it.

I walked into the Wisconsin bush the last two weekends knowing full well what lay ahead of me. Once in shorts and once in pants. Fully protected with bug spray and permethrin. They still got me. As of this typing I have 5 itchy tick bites.
One super duper tiny ba$tard dug in. So small I didn’t know it was there. I was worried about that one but nothing seems to have come from it other than a big red bump like all the others. It was worth it for the Brook Trout I caught.
I don’t believe Lyme’s is that easy to catch. I know it sucks but I also believe its blown out of proportion. Either that or Im a carrier and show no symptoms or am just lucky. They say the Lyme tick must be attached at least 24 yours to transmit the disease. That would explain it for me since no tick comes close to being attached that long. (except that little ba$tard mentioned above) Most just nip me and I have a bad reaction.

Woody's Tick Tape

My own little invention!! I was using normal lint rollers for years and worked great! I went to better adhesive & it improved results even more and trademarked Woody’s Tick Tape!!

I like it!

Have any of you tried the Thermacell Tick Tubes?

I had one attached on my back and not knowing I just pulled it off and left a red bump and itched for about a week.