Also see related article: Tick Paralysis

There is something about a tick that can really get under your skin. Maybe it is because they are sneaky. They lurk about on plants and bushes, hiding in ambush, waiting for you or your dog to brush up against the leaf they are hiding on so they can grab on and attach themselves to you. Once on you, they slowly crawl around until they find quiet, out of the way spot to drill for blood. To ensure that you don’t know that they are there, they have a substance in their saliva that desensitizes the area they are tapping into, so that you or your dog don’t feel anything. Then they hang on and gorge themselves until they swell up and look like a fat pinto bean, at which time they either fall off or get discovered.

Ticks can easily hide in the hair of a dog or cat, so a daily tick check is a good idea, in order to find and remove any that have gotten on board before they can get established. Ticks are hard to kill, and many people who have to deal with them on a regular basis develop a real attitude toward them, and devise unique methods of killing them. After you find a tick on yourself or your dog and pick it off, what do you do? They are flat and wide and can withstand a lot of pressure, so crushing them is difficult. Grinding them between two fingernails works sometimes, but as often as not they are still crawling when you stop. Ripping the head off with your fingernail works but is not for the squeamish. We know of people who burn them, wrapping the tick in a piece of tissue and lighting it, or placing it in a container with alcohol and lighting it. Ticks have a way of bringing out your dark side. If you are inside and find a tick, try placing it on the edge of the kitchen sink and rolling a spoon over it. It works and cleanup is easy.

A recent article in the “Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association told of a Mississippi man who had a novel method of killing ticks. When he found a tick on one of his dogs, he would place it between his teeth and bite it. Unfortunately, one of the ticks carried Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and now his dogs are orphans. Some local veterinarians, on hearing of this, began asking their clients if they had ever heard of this method of killing ticks, and discovered that it is not an uncommon practice in Mississippi. Which is just one more reason to be grateful that Alabama is where it is.

There are two types of tick that are most often encountered, the dog tick and the deer tick. The dog tick is the one most often found on dogs and people. They are known to carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but it is rare in this part of the country. The deer tick is the one that carries Lyme disease, and while a number of people do contract Lyme disease each year in Georgia, it is not the problem here that it is in other parts of the country.

What are these creatures that have taken much of the carefree pleasure out of a simple walk in the woods? An eight-legged arachnid, related to spiders, the tick has developed a number of tools that allow it to survive and thrive in spite of its limited mobility. The front legs have barbed hooks that snag fur or clothing on a passing target. The mouth is like a pair of scissors with the cutting edge on the outside that enables the tick to cut into the host. There is also a tube with serrated edges on the outside that anchors the tick to the host and serves as a drinking straw.

It is the tick’s invisible, chemical weapons that have attracted the attention of the medical community. Tick saliva contains dozens of sophisticated chemicals that work to trick and suppress the host body’s natural defenses. Unlike mosquitoes and horseflies, ticks don’t hit and run. They are setting up for one big meal.

As the tick begins cutting into the host, one of the chemicals in the saliva desensitizes the area to prevent pain or itching. An anti-clotting agent ensures that the blood keeps flowing. Another chemical signals the immune system that there is no foreign intruder in the body, so there is no reason to send white blood cells to fight it. This guarantees that only rich red blood cells flow to the site.

The tick continues to cut the hole beneath the skin and inject saliva until the pool of blood is big enough. Then it begins to drink, in what researchers call “the big sip”. It ingests the blood as fast as possible while expelling saliva into the hole, speeding up the passage of any disease bacteria it may be carrying. As it fills up with blood, the tick grows to many times its normal size. Finally, fully gorged, it falls off and crawls under some ground mulch, where the females lay thousands of eggs.

Ticks are a nuisance, but they are not so bad that you should avoid contact with nature because of them. There are a few products for dogs that claim to work against ticks. Your vet is the one to ask about which of them really work. One that does work is Frontline spray. We have used it since it came out, and it is great for fleas and kills ticks too, just not as fast. For your self, insect repellents containing DEET work best (Deep Woods Off) and keep mosquitoes, horseflies and gnats away. Do not use these human products on your dog; they might lick it and DEET should not be ingested. It is recommended that you wash it off after your hike.