Monday, March 14, 2011

Ticks on a Wall

Snakes on a plane?!  No!  Ticks on a wall! For reals.  I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but these days I am finding bloated and gray ticks just chillin' out on our walls.  I've plucked three of them off three different walls in our house over the last month or so. 

Despite lots of preventative treatment, we just can't keep the ticks off of Jesse the Texas Black Dog.  There are teeny tiny ticks that live in the sand or on the flowy grasses around the island and I think they hang out in clumps, so when he brushes by them, several jump on at once.  I pick at least 2 or 3 off of him a day and if I forget for a few days, or if he got into an especially lush patch of ticks, I can end up with a jar full of about 20 of them.  Usually, they hang out in twos and threes on his body; I assume it is easier to get a good chomp where a fellow tick has already settled in.  This makes removal easier and more satisfying!

Egan loves the tick removal process, so we've made it into a bit of family fun....Egan holds the flashlight when needed, guards the jar and alerts us to any attempted escape and lastly gets to be the one to dump them into the toilet and flush.  He says:  "Bye bye tickies" as they swirl on down. 

Despite all of the ticks traipsing into the house, there have only been two incidents of Ticks on a Human.  Once on the back of Egan's head and once on my belly.  I felt it lock down and removed it immediately.  And I'm pretty sure the one on Egan had also only just sunk in because it was still super tiny and flat.  Thankfully Tommy has escaped being a host, as I think he might pass out at the discovery of a little passenger.

For those of you who are considering a move to Belize and are now freaked out about the ticks:  Only the dog people need be concerned.  And more so the dog people who take their dogs out and about and let them frolic in the sand and sea and tropical foliage.  AND then let them in the house. 

So, back to the wall.  I am hoping someone can tell me what is up with that.  I figure that once they hit their limit, they drop off and enjoy lazing about with full tummies.  Then once they deflate they get back into action.  Or they die.  Not sure, but I think it is great they end up on the wall where we can easily see them and send them off to the septic tank.  No more getting back into action!

2 comments:

  1. We live in the Toledo District, in the rain forest, and we have two miniature doxies who have been getting ticks faster than we can keep up.
    After going through all the (limited) available topical treatments, we decided to go the route of monthly shots.
    We started on the 1st of this month, and have seen a big reduction in the number of ticks, but they still get them! And they are the really small gray ones.
    I was thinking the small gray ones may be freshly hatched ticks. So I washed the dogs in copal soap (I think a sulfur based soap would be effective too), and have seen another reduction.

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  2. Thanks Harry! I really appreciate the tip. What kind of shot? The tick prob has increased and we are about to start a yucky flea bath regimen.

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