How to tell you have them
A tick on the dog after a walk now and then is expected. Ticks crawling up walls, along baseboards or out of the dog’s bed are a different story: that is usually the brown dog tick, which can complete its whole life cycle indoors. Outdoors, lone star ticks and American dog ticks wait on tall grass and brush along wooded edges, preserves and trails, and climb onto people and pets passing by.
What they damage
Ticks feed on blood and can carry diseases to pets and people. Remove an attached tick promptly with fine tweezers, pulling straight out, and talk to your doctor or vet if a rash or fever follows a bite.
What treatment looks like
Your vet treats the pet with a tick preventive, and we treat the places ticks live. Indoors, for brown dog ticks, that means the cracks along baseboards, door frames and window frames and the areas around pet beds, where they hide and lay eggs. Outdoors, we treat the edges between lawn and natural areas, ground cover and the spots where pets rest. Keeping grass short and leaving a strip of mulch or gravel between the lawn and any brush helps keep yard ticks back.
How long it takes
An indoor brown dog tick infestation usually needs two or three treatments a few weeks apart, together with the pet’s preventive. Yard treatments reduce ticks within days and are refreshed at each quarterly visit.
Florida notes
Ticks are active all year in Florida, with a spring peak in our seasonal model. Homes backing onto natural areas, such as the edges of Boyd Hill or Sawgrass Lake in St. Petersburg, see more yard ticks than homes in the middle of a city block. Ticks are covered on every plan, starting with Quarterly.