Ticks are disgusting. When one lands on your pup, your first instinct is to pull it off immediately. Don't! There are a series of steps you need to follow in order to properly remove a tick off of your dog.

Don't pull the tick off with your fingers.

Instead of grabbing the tick by its body, you need to grab it by its head. The tick may be burrowing into your dog's skin so you will need to get as close to the head as you can. The best way to do this is with a pair of tweezers. If your dog is a squirmer like mine, the hardest part with be trying to hold him still. Be careful not to pull hard on your dog's skin, but be sure you are as close as you can get to that nasty little tick's head. Then start to slowly pull that little sucker out of your dog's skin. Don't move it around and be sure you just pull it out straight. Sometimes the head can get left in your dog's skin and this can cause further irritation or cause the diseases the tick is carrying to still spread throughout your pup's body.

Kill the tick.

After you have that tiny bloodsucker's body in between your tweezers, it's important to kill it. You can't treat this insect like a spider and just flush it down the toilet. Ticks are relentless. They can survive the flush and will inevitably come back to cause more harm. That's how disgusting they are! So what you need to do is place the tick in a glass of alcohol. Let it sit there for a good twenty minutes, (I would wait half an hour just to make sure the little sucker is dead), then toss it in the garbage.

Clean the bite.

Now it's time to clean the infected area on your puppy. Find the irritated spot and take some disinfectant cream or soap and thoroughly cleanse the area completely. It will probably be a little red and swollen for a few days, but it's super important to make sure the bite is cleaned out completely. The diseases the tick is carrying can continue to spread unless you clean out the bite entirely. Plus, it will cause your pup to stop scratching and biting at the infected area.

Double check your pup.

Just because you got one tick off of your dog doesn't mean you got them all. Be sure to check your entire dog's body for any other little nasty termites infested in his fur. Check in all the warm places, as ticks like to burrow in moist, warmer parts of dogs and cats. Under his legs, in between his paws, in his ears, underneath his thick fur, and anywhere else you think a tick might be hiding should be checked thoroughly. After he is in the clear, you can let him go play. Watch out that he isn't getting into compact shrubbery or high grass. This is where ticks live and breathe. Protect your pup by eliminating the risk of a tick bite at all by monitoring where he runs around outside.

About the author: Carly is a blogger for Smith security. She loves dogs, has lived in the countryside for a few months now, and has removed more ticks than she can count off of her dog.