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If you feel a smooth hard bump, your pet could have picked up a tick.
These bloodsucking parasites are every squeamish pet owner's worst nightmare. They bury their jaws in your dog or cat's skin and glue themselves there while they suck your pet's blood and swell up to over a centimetre long.
Removing ticks as soon as you spot them is essential for your pet’s health. Whether you’re wondering how to remove a tick from a cat or need advice on canine tick removal, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know.
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How to remove a tick from your cat or dog
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To safely remove a tick from your pet, whether it’s a tick on your cat or taking out a tick from a dog, follow these steps:
Prepare your supplies
Latex or nitrile gloves
Fine-point tweezers or a tick-removal tool
Rubbing alcohol
A small container with a lid
Calm your pet
Hold your pet gently but securely. If needed, ask someone to help keep them still.
Locate the tick
Part their fur to clearly expose the tick.
Remove the tick
Using tweezers: Position the tweezers around the tick, close to the skin, and pull upward in a steady, smooth motion. Avoid jerking or twisting, as this may leave the tick’s head embedded in your pet’s skin.
Using a tick-removal tool: Follow the tool’s specific instructions for safe tick removal.
Dispose of the tick
Check to ensure the tick is intact. Place it in the container with rubbing alcohol to kill it. This prevents it from reattaching to your pet or even you!
Clean the area
Gently clean your pet’s skin with rubbing alcohol.
Please visit a vet if you're not confident in the above steps.
Tick-removal – what not to do
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Petroleum jelly, burning, freezing or resorting to any other method to kill the tick while it's still in your pet's skin is a bad idea.
Even if you manage to kill it, the head could remain in your cat or dog's skin and make them ill. Holding a flame near the body of the tick can be dangerous and severely injure your pet or burn its fur.
If you need help removing ticks, take your pet to your vet, who can also prescribe or recommend a preventative spray or spot-on to help avoid future bites.
How to check your pet for ticks
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Run your hands across your pet’s body and inspect any skin bumps you feel to make sure they are not ticks. They often attach themselves to the face, neck, ears and underbelly areas.
Is it a tick, nipple or skin tag?
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It can be surprisingly hard to tell the difference between a tick, nipple and skin tag on your cat or dog. If you're in any doubt that what you can feel is a tick, put the tweezers down and speak to a vet first.
We promise they won't laugh - veterinary surgeon Dr Kirsten Ronngren gets asked this on a pretty regular basis.
"Usually skin tags and nipples are going to be the same or similar colour to the skin itself, whereas ticks will usually be a brown colour. They may change colour a bit depending on how old the tick is and if it's already attached and trying to feed (i.e. filling up with blood).
"A majority of the time if you really look hard enough, you can see that ticks do have eight little legs. You can use a magnifying glass or zoom in with your phone that can help!"
How pet insurance helps
With us, you get unlimited, fast online vet advice from a UK-registered vet at any time of day or night with your ManyPets pet insurance policy through FirstVet. They'll be happy to reassure you that what you're looking at is, in fact, a tick.
Other than that, we offer up to £15,000 vet fee cover and a host of ManyPets Perks.
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