I found the first deer tick of the year last Thursday evening, crawling up the white cuff of my own sock in the back entry. It was about the size of a sesame seed. Hank and I had just come back from a walk along the edge of a field near the Rum River, and I'd only stepped off the path for maybe thirty seconds to untangle his leash from a shrub. That was enough.
People are often surprised that ticks show up in April here. The snow has barely left the shady spots and the trees are only starting to bud. But once the ground thaws and the days get into the forties and fifties, the deer ticks wake up, and Isanti County, with its woods, tall grass and deer in every ditch, is very good tick country.
What Hank is on
Hank gets a monthly chew from our clinic that covers heartworm, fleas and ticks, and he gets it year-round, not just in summer. Our vet's reasoning, as it was explained to me, is that Minnesota winters have thaws, ticks can be active on any day that's above freezing, and skipping months creates gaps. It lists at $31.00 a dose. With my staff discount, we pay $21.70 a month.
He also got his Lyme vaccine at his checkup in March, and his 4Dx blood screen, which checks for heartworm and several tick-borne diseases, came back negative. The vaccine and the chew are two separate layers, and neither one means we can skip checking him.
I'm not going to tell you which product to use. Different dogs, different health histories and different regions call for different choices, and that's exactly the kind of decision to make with your own vet, who knows your dog.
Our nightly tick check
From now until the first hard frost, Hank gets checked every night after his last trip outside. It takes about five minutes, and he thinks it's a massage. I sit on the floor of the back entry with a headlamp on, and I go in the same order every time so I don't skip anything:
- Ears, inside the flaps and along the edges
- Around the collar line, with the collar off
- Face, chin and the corners of the lips
- Both armpits
- Between every toe and around the pads
- Belly and groin
- Base of the tail and under it
I run my fingers against the direction of the fur, feeling for a small bump, then look closely. Golden fur is both good and bad here: a dark tick shows up against it, but his undercoat is thick enough to hide one completely. A lint roller over his back and sides catches the crawlers that haven't attached yet.
When I do find an attached one, I remove it with a tick tool that came from the clinic, then tape it to an index card with the date written on it, in case our vet ever wants to know when and where. If you've never removed a tick, ask your clinic to show you. It takes two minutes and makes the first one much less stressful.
Caleb and I check ourselves too. He spends his summers mowing county ditches and has a healthy respect for ticks. In April he's mostly patching potholes, but he still tucks his pants into his socks and doesn't care how it looks.
The trail edges we skip in April
Ticks wait on the tips of tall grass and low brush for something to brush past, so in spring we change where we walk. We stay in the middle of trails and skip the grassy shoulders, especially the unmowed edges along the river path, which is exactly where I picked up last week's tick. Paved trails like the Sunrise Prairie Trail near North Branch get a lot more of our weekend walks. At Wild River State Park we stick to the wide, mowed paths and keep Hank's leash short. At home, Caleb keeps the strip of grass along our backyard fence mowed short, since that's Hank's favorite squirrel lane.
From the front desk: the first tick calls of the year always come during a warm week in April, and nearly every caller says the same thing, which is that they thought it was too early. It never is.
Mabel doesn't go outside, but Hank brings the outside in. I found a tick on the gray sofa last spring, walking across the cushion she sleeps on. She isn't on any prevention right now, and that's a question I've added to my list for her next visit.
