Tick season

It seems like ticks exploded onto the scene this year. We had a long cold winter and I know I assumed that it would delay the arrival of nasty creatures like ticks. Wrong. Apparently, the snow cover protects them, so they're worse on years with snow cover even when combined with frigid temps.

Back in late May, right about the time I heard at work that a few people had already picked up ticks while working outdoors, I went to the barn and found out that Bestie had come in with one on her muzzle.

The amazing thing to me was that the tick even got spotted on her, since her coat is so dark. A fellow boarder, Gina, who uses Bestie's pasture mate Sadie for lessons, went out to get Sadie and figured she'd bring in Bestie too rather than leave her alone. Gina noticed the tick while walking the mares in. I was so grateful.

This is the little contraption that barn owner Julie has on hand to extract ticks. I had never seen one before. It's about as long as my pinkie. Apparently you just position it so the little teeth/hooks fit around the tick and then twist and pop the tick off. There's even a YouTube video of people popping ticks off dogs (I think) ... many dogs. Crazy. And disgusting. I was trying to figure out if the contraption has an official name and the video came up in the search. Trying hard to get that one out of my head.




I have to say I'm a bit obsessive now about inspecting every little black speck I spot on them. Knock on wood, I haven't seen any more ticks on Bestie, or on Dude for that matter. Hopefully it stays that way.