Deer Ticks and Why We Hate Them

When we were young, we lived on 22 acres in rural, northern Rhode Island. During the warm months our Scotch collie dog Flicka would sometimes return after forays in the woods with fat, swollen ticks around the scruff of her neck.

While it was always a complete gross-out (even for country kids) to remove and kill those buggers, common dog ticks are not the ones we now fear as adults.

Deer Ticks

No, it's the dog tick's tiny cousin, the deer tick (or black-legged tick), that scares us half to death now.

This small creature--during part of its life cycle no larger than the punctuation mark at the end of this sentence--can literally bring human adults to their knees. We know several people suffering chronic after-effects of Lyme Disease. Hard to believe, maybe, but people and pets can and do die from tick-borne infections.

Learn and Live

If you live in an area hospitable to deer ticks, you and your pets are at risk of infection with any of several so called vector-borne diseases that sicken, cripple, and kill.

Among the diseases carried by deer ticks: Lyme Disease, which is perhaps most widely known; anaplasmosis; Ehrlichiosis; and babesiosis.

We have ourselves been infected with Lyme Disease twice. One of those times we got a nasty two-fer: we were coinfected with babesiosis. Our toy poodle Chris has had Ehrlichiosis and is at this moment undergoing antibiotic therapy for anaplasmosis.

Later This Week

In upcoming blogs, we will tell you about a blood test for your pet that is perhaps the best money you'll spend this year. We'll also show you several ways to help prevent tick-borne illnesses from harming your pets or your family. And, no, shooting Bambi isn't one of our recommendations. Deer are actually victims of tick-borne diseases, too.

Meantime, we implore you to visit just two sites. The University of Rhode Island Tick Encounter Research Center will show you how to distinguish between dog ticks and deer ticks. You'll learn a lot of other stuff, too.

We promise you this: The Yankee Magazine article "Lyme Disease: One Woman's Journey into Tick Country" will shock and amaze you. It provides reliable information that the U.S. government actually created population(s) of ticks to serve as parasitic biological weapons. Reading Edie Clark's article will have you shaking your head in disbelief. But Yankee Magazine is a champion of reputable journalism. You decide.

Until next time,

Dibs Darwin, Spokespoodle
Cape Rose Toy Poodles