An Interview with Tick Expert Dan Wolff of TickEase
What should you do if you find a tick on your dog? Dog owners are rightfully concerned about ticks biting their four-legged friends, especially in tick endemic areas like the northeast, and there are lots of questions! How do I protect my dog from ticks? What’s the best way to remove one? Tick expert Dan Wolff has the answers and he shares them in this video interview and guide.
Highlights from the Interview
How to Check for Ticks on Dogs
- Ticks are small and hard to see in a dog’s hair
- Use feeling rather than only looking with your eyes
- Push fingers through your dog’s coat like a comb, feeling for bumps
- On dogs, ticks are usually found on the face, head and neck
- Ticks like dark areas and crevices
- Be sure to check under the collar
- Check in and around the ears
- Check between toes, front legs, groin, and around the tail
What is the best way to remove a tick from your dog?
- To avoid contact with dangerous bacteria, wear vinyl or other thin rubber gloves if available.
- Use an inexpensive removal tool with a forked tip like TickEase.
- If a removal tool is not available, use tweezers.
- With a forked tool, it’s easy to go in sideways along the tick.
- A small bit of flesh may come out with the tick bite.
- Keep the tick so you can identify it.
How to Protect Dogs from Ticks
- Do regular tick checks (as outlined above)
- Ticks hide in grass, and shady, leaf-covered ground
- Do a tick check whenever your dog has been in wooded areas or around brush
- Mow, trim and clean up leafy, grassy areas in your yard
- Consider using a bug repellent dog collar and/or topical repellent
- Use permethrin treated clothes for dogs
- Bandanas repel ticks around the neck and ears, one of their favorite places to hide and bite
- Permethrin treated tank tops for dogs help keep ticks away from the torso
- And repellent blankets are great when your dog is laying down outside
What is the risk of a tick bite for a dog compared to a human?
This is where identifying the tick itself is important. You can use a free service like TickSpotters. The younger the tick, the less likely it is to be carrying infection. It’s important to know how old the tick is. Ticks on dogs tend to leave clear evidence of the tick bite. It becomes a hard and scabby, crusty welt. This may last weeks or months, but it has no bearing on whether the dog has been exposed to disease.
Should I take my dog to the vet when it’s bitten by a tick?
Dogs will let you know how they are feeling. Unlike humans who may still go to work if they are feeling slightly unwell, a dog may seem low on energy, less enthusiastic about eating or going out. If you know you pulled a tick off a week ago and your dog is now not wanting to eat, this is a good indication to take the dog to the vet.
Explore Insect Repellent Clothing for Pets
Transcript of the Interview
Mark at Insect Shield
We’re here today with Tick Man Dan, Dan Wolf, our resident tick expert. But you know, you’re in Massachusetts. So you’re a resident of Massachusetts.
Tick Man Dan
Right? But in my heart…
Mark at Insect Shield
That’s right. In your heart, you’re a resident of Seattle. We’re open to, you know, visitors. The topic of today is dogs and ticks. And this is quite a big deal, even in the news. Lot’s of people are concerned about ticks on their dogs. And I want to find out more. I know that we’ve got a lot of viewers who would like to learn more about it, because there are a lot of questions. So we can just launch into those, Dan, although if you want to give yourself a little intro, that’d be awesome.
Tick Man Dan
Sure, well, thanks, Mark. It’s a pleasure to be here, as always. I know this isn’t the first time that we’ve provided some information. I am here, as you said, in the Boston area of Massachusetts, and I’m out all the time, in areas where there are lots of ticks. I am a family man with children who are older now, but have grown up worrying about ticks and fortunate, I guess, to have me as a dad, so I could sort of guide them through their tick encounters. I also have two large, goofy dogs, who are always getting ticks on them, regardless of what we do to prevent them. They’re always very insidious little creatures that kind of can break down and get through our defenses. So I’ve been studying ticks for about 25 years, and deer behavior and the relationship [between] the two of them in suburban Massachusetts, where we do have a very, very high tick and deer density now in our suburban settings.
Mark at Insect Shield
Great. So you’ve been studying ticks and working in this area for quite a while. And in fact, I think you’ve innovated a tick removal tool. So we’ll talk about that a little bit. I’m really excited to have your knowledge and be able to, to put some of this out there. So I looked into this a little bit, and looked for the top questions about dogs and ticks. I mean, the first one that I found is people saying, you know, what should I do? Obviously, ticks are not great. Most people understand that. But how do you deal with ticks? And what’s the best way to look for ticks on your dog?
Tick Man Dan
I get people calling me up all the time, regarding their pets, particularly their dogs. It’s interesting, because cats certainly get ticks on them as well. But for some reason, they really hardly ever, if ever show symptoms of tick borne illness. So it’s a little confusing, a little bit of a mystery as to why dogs can get terribly sick in certain instances, but cats seem to remain kind of immune to the exposure to these pathogens. Although if you have a cat, you certainly want to get ticks off if they pick them up. And the methods for removing these ticks on dogs and cats is the same. So I just wanted to put that out there to all of the cat lovers out there. And I know some people have dogs and cats at the same time. And given the close proximity, you know, the dogs that go outside can bring the ticks home and bring them to their feline friends.
As far as what to do with dogs. I mean, there’s a lot involved here. And I get a lot of different questions from people. Regarding ticks and dogs, I think that one of the most important things at least in the northeast, and I’d have to check to see the prevalence of disease carrying types of ticks in other parts of the country. But I’m more familiar with what’s going on here in the northeast, which is a pretty populous area of the country. And we do have a lot of people with what I’ve experienced not to say that in other parts of the country, they don’t, but we have a lot of people with good experience in the veterinary field regarding ticks, so the first thing I would say is it’s important to properly identify ticks. And there’s a couple of ways we can do that. I mean, you can study them and look online and try to match them up. But it’s really difficult once the ticks become engorged or have taken a blood meal to tell them apart.
This is an adult female deer tick and this is unfed. So what you can see here is a coloration, you can see this part of the tick, which is called the scutum. It’s kind of like a shell. Now, this is really important in identifying ticks, because there are specific markings on this part of the tick that can determine the type of tick. Why is this important? Well, this is important, because the deer tick in our area is the worst offender when it comes to being able to transmit disease, or they’re called a “vector.” A vector is anything that’s able to transmit disease from one thing to another – one creature to another. [Mosquitoes have been] the biggest offenders when it comes to vectors, and that is malaria and other you know, mosquito borne illnesses are starting to creep up, pun intended, in that area, with the types of diseases and the concern of the health community and for people and animals combined.
So we want to identify that tick, because the dog tick in our area here is not known for carrying too many diseases. It’s possible they can carry things like tularemia or Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It’s possible, much more common in the south. For what reason? I don’t know. But up here, I consider the dog tick more of a nuisance, rather than a potential vector. So it’s important to know, you know, so you don’t want to freak out too much. Depending on where you are, regarding the type of tick, and on the dog tick the scutum is pretty clear. So you can tell from looking at that part of the tick, even if the back end of the tick is swollen up like a water balloon.
Mark at Insect Shield
Can people go on line and find the ticks? I’m assuming there are a lot of pictures out there that would show what a dog tick looks like.
Tick Man Dan
Absolutely, you can find us online, real photos I’ve got on the website (tickease.com). But, you know, the CDC has ID cards, usually your state public health department will have tick identification, they’ll have a dedicated area, typically, for identification and information regarding tips and illnesses, right, is a good website that is a free resource. It’s based out of the University of Rhode Island and I use it all the time, it’s taken counter.org and then you search for the word tick spotters up on the menu bar. And then you can submit a picture and their experts will positively ID that tick. Of course, it’s destroyed. But if the tick generally intact tic tac, they’ll be able to provide you with a proper ID and then you know, you can decide whether or not I’m going to worry about this or I’m not going to so that’s pretty much the you know the basic thing once your dog is has been bitten by a tick, okay, always, you know, the rule of thumb is when your animal or yourself have a tick you want to get that tick off, even if it’s not gonna, you know, potentially transmit disease to you.
The idea is to get the tick off quickly and properly. So there are a lot of methods for that we can talk about that later if you want but identifying the tick and then just knowing sort of what happens in every scenario of what happens when your dog is bitten by a tick if it’s engorged what should you do? How can you prevent and prepare yourself and you know I can I can help you with those questions too.
Mark at Insect Shield
Yeah, well that’s definitely the place we want to start I think because you know removing the tick we talked about this in another interview that we did but there’s a lot of wrong ways or even some myths you know and kind of urban legends about the best way to remove a tick, and some amazing stuff actually trying to you know, not burn it but light a match and heat it up and then it pulls its head out, stuff like that. But I think like your tool for example has one side which is the kind of recommended side for humans, that very thin needle tweezers type that allows you to grab the head of the tick very carefully and remove it. But the other side that I have a question about is more like a kind of a forked tong thing, a scoop or a slotted spatula.
Tick Man Dan
And yeah, it’s important to understand these various methods for tick removal, and actually, I replied to one of my YouTube videos, this was funny this morning, and if anybody wants to check out some really good and kind of graphic at times, demonstrations of live tick removal, you can go to the YouTube channel and search TickEase. Please subscribe. I won’t disappoint you as far as the growth factor goes, if you like that kind of stuff, but it’s important to see what I’m doing so that you can do it yourself. But this gentleman replied and somehow he equated the old methods of tick removal to wearing a mask. He said he was referring to using a match on the tick, and that it’s been a tried and true method for decades and generations. Oh, and by the way, don’t kill the tick because they have feelings too. And make sure you’re always wearing your mask when you remove the tick.
Mark at Insect Shield
Oh he was being sarcastic? He wasn’t suggesting actually to wear a mask?
Tick Man Dan
I don’t know. Not sure. Okay. People do wear gloves. And that’s appropriate because the infectious agents are liquid.
Mark at Insect Shield
You can’t inhale the infectious juices of the tick though, right?
Tick Man Dan
Yeah, it hasn’t become aerosolized. I call it yucky tick juice.
Mark at Insect Shield
Right, your technical term.
Tick Man Dan
If you squeeze it, and this and the yucky tick juice comes out, and it’s on your finger. Well, now you’re a potential vehicle for exposure? Absolutely. So what I’m getting at is that on dogs, and particularly long haired dogs, it’s really difficult to first of all, detect the ticks when they first get on. And it depends on the time of the year because ticks have a life cycle, like everything else. And the baby ticks are smaller, just like people, babies are smaller than full grown adults are not exponentially. Yeah. It’s really hard. For example, I don’t know if I can show you all this, but this is what we’re dealing with. When we talk about nymphal-stage deer ticks (they are) are tiny. And they’re very tiny. Yeah. Are you going to find that on a St. Bernard? When it’s just embedding itself? You’re not.
Mark at Insect Shield
It looks like those ticks were socially distanced there in your in your tray.
Dan showing the difference in size between a nymph vs a fully fed deer tick
Tick Man Dan
But okay, so you saw those were nymphs. So look at look at the larger one there. Right. Fully fed deer tick. That’s just one. Yeah. I mean, it’s hundreds of times expanded from its state. I mean, they have elasticity in their abdomens that will to swell up and become full of blood and yucky tick juice. Yes. What I do with my dogs is I’m constantly feeling rather than looking. And I can you know, my dog loves it. So they climb up on my lap. And I’ll just, you know, like what I do on myself on my own hair.
So you just massage the dog, and particularly around the base of the ears. On the chin, under the neck. Just pick out the crevices where the legs meet the body and right, the other area, the back of the tail.
13:50
But I usually find them on the face, head and neck. The ticks seem to like to gravitate to those areas. So when you feel them, you can feel the tick is going to be attached.
See this is called the hypostome here, that’s the only thing that goes into your body is this little piece, that’s that single piece. Okay, the tick is kind of flexible. When it’s biting, it’s biting like this, sometimes it’ll lay a little flat and you can do this. So when you’re feeling on the skin, you can feel like a little skin tag or a scab. And that’s you got to take a closer look. And if you didn’t find the tick, you’ll be able to remove it now. That’s what I say with dogs with long hair. You mostly find them by feel and then determine that this tick is in its feeding state or has become somewhat in gorged or fully engorged. Then you want to take the next step you want to say hi, I got to get this tick out. Right. And there have been a lot of methods over the years.
I happen to have a few of them here. These are what I actually recommend not using.
Tick Removal Options: Comparing the improved design of TickEase (left) to Ticked Off, or the Tick Spoon (right)
This is called the ticked off, or the tick spoon, which seems to have popularity. And it’s okay, you know, it was designed a while ago, and on certain areas of your animal and flat areas with fully engorged ticks, it’s fine.
What I did was I designed a, you know, similar method, which is the root. But compared to the footprint of the spoon, we have a much smaller, you know, area there, right, so it’s easier to get into those tight spots. Like I said, it’s the same idea, or the same concept here. Only this will be a lot more effective and tighter areas. Sure. I’ve had ticks in my belly button. But I want to see you get that out of your belly button (with this tool).
And then this “tick key”, which is also very popular. I don’t understand. Because what you do is when the tick is biting, I’m hoping you can see this Yeah, actually, at the top, and you pull it this way. Oh, dear. You know, you’re pulling sideways on a vertical penetration of that appendage. And that can only potentially weaken the connection and possibly break off that mouth part. So between your toes. And in your belly button, how the heck, you can get this to work there.
I mean, you know, there’s other things like this crazy looking tool. And why you would want to go get so complicated.
Mark at Insect Shield
Yeah, that’s kind of space-age, though.
Tick Man Dan
Just use a sharp tweezer. And you can just go, boom, you don’t have to have spring loaded gadgets like this. But getting back to the dog. Alright, so your dog has an engorged tick. Basically, like I said, you’re going to want to…see my watch, I can’t take that one off. But what you’re going to do is you’re going to want to go in, sideways, okay, so the tick’s feeding like that. You want to go in this way. Okay? Not this way, right? Going this way on the tick. And when you go in that way, you’re gonna wiggle it to the back. And then you don’t want to pry it or twist it, you want to lift it slowly and steadily straight out.
And, you know, depending on the type of tick is they have different sizes of their mouth parts compared to their bodies. Dog ticks are kind of stubby and their mouth parts, and they can pop out a lot easier. But what I’ve noticed is that most of the dog ticks I removed also grab a chunk of flesh. And so you’re obviously a little white speck of flesh in their mouth. But that’s fine. Don’t panic about that because you want everything out, you know you’ve got everything if it has a chunk of skin in it. Not all of them have that. But most of the ones that I remove do have that little piece of skin.
I mean, that’s really what you want to do. And then people kind of freak out a little bit, which is understandable.
Mark at Insect Shield
So there’s other questions I had. We’ve talked about getting that tick out. And of course, that’s the most important thing. So maybe compared to a bite to human because it’s sort of the same risks, but how different or similar is the is the risk for a dog like what could happen if they’re bitten by a tick, what’s kind of the worst scenario?
Tick Man Dan
Ideally, you have gotten a out before it’s been on the dog very long, right? That’s, that’s important to the time that it’s been, you know, biting. This is where identification comes into play, and what TickSpotters on the tickencounter.org website will do is this. They’ll tell you the type of tick and at what stage of its life it’s in. Because you have to understand that when ticks grow, and change, transition from one stage of life to another, they require a blood meal, to do that, to get the energy to go to another stage of life, or at the end to lay eggs and then die or mate, in the case of the males.
So they don’t feed that often. But they’re mostly starting from a clean slate when they’re born. So the younger the tick, the smaller the tick, the less likely it has infectious agents within it. So but on the other side of things, even though it has less infectious agents in it as a nymph versus an adult, more people get sick from nymphs. Because they’re much harder to detect because of their size, close to those nymphs I showed you earlier, versus the adults, which are substantially larger, even though they’re still small, comparatively speaking, they’re substantially larger. Yeah. So it’s important to know what type of tick because if my dog gets a young dog tick on or in him, I’m really not going to worry too much. But if it’s an adult stage deer tick that’s fully engaged, then I’ve got to be a little concerned. So do I react the same with let’s say, if it was my wife or my son? Versus my dog? No.
Because going to the vet, I mean, my dog gets ticks a lot more than I do. Yeah. And seems to be okay, although one of my dogs has had some disease. We didn’t specify which tick borne illness but has had tick borne illness. I’m going to assume it’s Lyme. And we did treat him and he’s fine, thankfully, but it’s important to know a couple of things: ticks on, dogs tend to leave very pronounced evidence of the bite at the bite site. What I found is it’s very strange, it gets hard, it can raise like a big welt in some cases, and becomes like a crusty scabby welt. And I don’t, I mean, I certainly that wouldn’t be caused for me to be freaking out. Because my dog’s had tons of tick bites. And he seems to have this reaction quite often. And I think it’s just a reaction to the bite. And that’s it.
In the instance that he got sick, I didn’t really notice anything unusual at the bite site. So regardless of exposure, a lot of dogs will get this big welt, crusty welt that looks like it itches and feels terrible. But my dog seems to not be bothered by it. And even afterwards, to this day, I know he had a tick bite on his, it’s kind of near his tail. So I think it has that kind of effect on the animal, but that doesn’t have any bearing on exposure to disease. I think that’s just a separate issue. So I’m trying to try to tell people not to freak out. Just because it has a crusty scabby welt after the bite. That’s kind of typical.
Mark at Insect Shield
So I mean, how alarming is it? You know, you’re saying you’ve got to try to identify that tick on your dog once you remove it. But what about going to the vet? I mean, should people seriously consider taking the dog to the vet once it’s been bitten or not?
Tick Man Dan
You can, although if it were me, my dogs would be going quite often and it would get kind of expensive. What I do is I let the dog and his behavior tell me what’s going on. Because unlike people, dogs are pretty, you know, clear if they’re not feeling well.
As far as what I know about tick borne illnesses, for example, you know, some people might feel a little tired, but they still go to work. They’re not telling anybody because you know, it’s just I’m getting old or you know, I have allergies. I don’t know what it is. And they may be infected. But well, dogs tend to… you know their behavior. My dogs are food obsessed. They are crazy when it comes to chasing squirrels and going on their walks and all that stuff like most dogs are, and just out of the blue one day, Charlie, he was laying down, it’s time to eat. He just picked up his head and looked at me and put his head back down. Okay? This is not right. Okay, maybe he’s got a little stomach thing. We waited a little while, a day or so. And he was still kind of lethargic. But then later that evening, usually he jumps right up on the chair, or on the couch. His back legs were like jelly, and he was limping. And I said, Okay, you’re going to the vet. They wanted to do all sorts of tests. I said, you know, just put him on the antibiotics. Within five days he was back to normal. Three to five days. And he was he then kept on the antibiotics for a month.
A lot of people get their dogs vaccinated. I’m not so sure what my opinion is on that. I don’t have one either way. Personally, I don’t get my dogs vaccinated. Because I’m, I’m just not you know, it’s that whole vaccine thing, although I did get the covid vaccine. So I’m not against vaccines.
But I’m just kind of not sure about this particular one. And he’s 12 years old, and he’s had plenty of ticks and only had one bout with tick borne illness. So I’ll leave that up to the dog owners out there. If they want to get that vaccine, that’s fine. But notice these things, if you know if you know you pulled a tick off a week ago, and all of a sudden, your dog that will eat everything in sight is certain is all sudden loses interest in food? Yeah, but that’s a pretty big red flag. Sure, absolutely.
Mark at Insect Shield
Sure, absolutely.
Tick Man Dan
I would be hesitant to say, you know, this can cause fatalities if left untreated for a certain period of time. I’ll leave that up to the professional veterinarians. I know, it can be debilitating. And I know, in certain breeds that are susceptible to dysplasia and other joint type issues, this may be a trigger to sort of accelerate natural problems in those joint areas.
Mark at Insect Shield
Okay, so it can be a catalyst for, you know, longer lasting issues.
Tick Man Dan
For sure. I suppose if you didn’t recognize the symptoms, and your dog stopped eating and stopped drinking, then, of course, that could be a major issue with malnutrition, and, and others. Plus, taking them to the vet, when you notice these symptoms. First of all, I mean, if you didn’t notice a tick, that’s one thing, but if you pulled off a tick recently, and then the dog is now showing symptoms, just go, you know, don’t even question it. Just take him or her and get the antibiotic treatment. If you didn’t realize that there was a tick, and they start feeling that way. Give it a day or so. It may be something unrelated, you know, my dogs get into things in the yard.
You know, let them see if it’s gonna work it out themselves. If not take them to the vet. But I think that in and of itself, the Lyme disease is not going to kill the dog, it may make them suffer terribly with these joint issues, and lead to other types of symptoms. But, you know, rule of thumb is just if you notice something wrong, just try to get it addressed. And most of the veterinarians in our area, are pretty good at identifying the symptoms. But then again, you also want to know, if you can, what type of tick it was and not to worry so much about it.
Mark at Insect Shield
Okay, because that was one question I had is should we get this tick analyzed, and we’ll talk in another interview, at some point about, you know, the services that are available, and I know you worked with TickEncounter at tickencounter.org.
The last, I guess kind of question I have is how to, if there are ways to keep ticks off your dog. And I’ve actually seen I didn’t know that people do this, but they will spray their dog with a kind of repellent. And I think it’s permethrin that that they will use which we offer, you know, spray cans of permethrin that’s for treating clothing. We do not advertise it as for treating dogs. But is that something that people do? And you know, beyond that, what other ways are there that you can keep ticks away from your dog?
Tick Man Dan
Well, there’s a million different thoughts on that.
Mark at Insect Shield
How about you light a match next to your dog?
Tick Man Dan
I wouldn’t try that. I saw on social media a couple years ago that somebody actually lit their dog on fire doing that.
Mark at Insect Shield
Crazy.
Tick Man Dan
You’d say that can’t be real, but apparently it was. And you know, given today’s world I’m not shocked.
I mean, there’s a variety of different ideas. Some people are resistant to put, you know, the chemicals on but the permethrin based products have been around and tested forever. I think there might be some type of treated clothing that somebody is selling.
Oh, that’s true. I’ve heard that. Yeah, you can actually buy that. And in fact, we do sell clothing for dogs, you know treated with permethrin so that that might be one.
Right now what I tell people is, first of all, Insect Shield, in my opinion has the best products for not only repelling the ticks but killing the ticks. Permethrin is a wonderful, wonderful thing to use against ticks.
There are other things to use, but I just don’t think they’re that effective. I mean, you know I’m talking humans here but DEET, picaridin, other seed oils or lemon, Eucalyptus and all these organic things. I think for ticks, it’s just not going to have the punch that you get with the permethrin and the Insect Shield stuff. And I do tell people, you know, I will be a licensed distributor for Insect Shield coming up soon. We have a bandana that the dog wears around the neck. And this is important because dogs going through sniffing the grass. This is where most ticks get on them and then they start to move. If the ticks come in contact directly with the apparel, they will die; they’ll fall off and die.
Unlike some repellents, which the dog may carry a tick inside the house, then the ticket is repelled but not killed. It jumps off or falls off and now it’s in the house. I found them in my bed before. So I do think permethrin is the best pyrethroid based products, I’m not aware of the ones that you would apply directly to the animal. But, you know, pyrethroids have been around since the old lice powders and shampoos. Perhaps there’s now a product that’s similar to that. But I don’t think it’ll have the impact that a treated apparel piece will have. Although I do recommend using the treated apparel on dogs, not to be used on cats, on dogs, as an added layer of protection on top of your preferred flea and tick preventative.
People are using Bravecto and Seresto and Frontline and Pet Armor and these types of topicals and other collars.
You know, and I’ll leave that up to the pet owner to decide which one is the best. There’s a product called Wondercide out there that you can apply directly to the animal. But you know, I’m thinking Well, every time we go for a walk, am I gonna come in and spray the dog down? And how much of that stuff am I gonna go through? And yeah, is it good for the dog? Apparently it is shown to be safe. But I just don’t know about that. That amount of activity. Or is this going to be costing an arm and a leg? I don’t really know. But there are products out there. I prefer the ones with the punch rather than the less punchy ones like the organics.
Mark at Insect Shield
This is flea and tick that you’re talking about specifically, are these going to repel? I’m sorry, not ticks? Will the repellents that you’re talking about you do put on the dog or collar? Is that effective against ticks? Or is it really for fleas?
Tick Man Dan
Yeah, no, it from what I understand, in particular, the ones I mentioned, are very effective or can be very effective against ticks.
As far as I understand, (Seresto) has been very effective. All of the feedback that I’ve heard, has been very effective, although there have been some claims recently that there were having some adverse reactions on dogs, but it was a very, very low number compared to how long it’s been out there and how many millions of collars have been sold. Sure. I don’t know, you know, whatever an acceptable risk is, but that’s again something that you’ll have to determine yourself.
Mark at Insect Shield
As a matter of fact, you know, we’ve we had some complaints quite a few years ago about permethrin and cats and so you know, that info sort of persisted. I don’t think there’s ever been a case of a cat you know, becoming ill from permethrin but that kind of builds on social media and whatnot.
Tick Man Dan
What I say is unless you’re going to submerge your cat in liquid permethrin or the cat’s gonna eat like 1,000 treated bandanas, right? And you really don’t have to worry about you know, if you have it on your dog and your dog and your cat are snuggling. I doubt there’s going to be any effects whatsoever. Don’t quote me on that. But that’s my opinion, I think it has to do with the way that the product is metabolized, versus humans and dogs.
But then again, the reason that it’s put on apparel is because once it dries, it becomes non water soluble, right? So it’s hard for it to spread. But so you have to be careful when you’re applying it. Also, when it’s in its liquid form.
Mark at Insect Shield
Right. And that’s, that’s the beauty of the Insect Shield treatment, as you know: Even if we treat people’s clothes that they send in to us, still the same process bonds to the fabric. It’s a heat generated process. And once that’s done, it’s good to go for [five times longer than clothes you treat yourself with spray].
Tick Man Dan
Many, many washings. Yeah, yeah, I’ve had good luck with that, I’ve actually been able to put a bunch of live ticks on a bandana that was treated and did a video of that and watch them curl up and desiccate pretty quickly…. I love watching that, because you know that you can hear the little ticks screaming. And it’s like…
Mark at Insect Shield
All right, well, on that note, I think we should probably wrap up our discussion of ticks and dogs.
Really appreciate it, Dan. It’s always a pleasure talking with you and getting your insights about ticks. So I think we’ll follow on with another interview at some point about testing of ticks, which I’m looking forward to learning about. So thanks so much.
Tick Man Dan
Yeah, tell your listeners to look out for my TickEase product.
