Do you use flea and tick meds on your pets?

Yes, but that doesn't keep a tick from crawling on them while laying in the grass then coming inside before they try to bite. Our dogs have super thick coats of hair.

Our Australian Shepherds have long, thick double coats. They both have had Lyme vaccines, and wear Seresto flea and tick collars. But ticks do jump a ride on them and come into the house despite our best efforts at surveillance. DH has had a fair share of them and occasionally goes on doxycyline when one has been attached and leaves a red ring on his skin. I found one on my upper thigh this morning when I was getting ready to shower. I had to pull it off, but it was still alive. It was a deer tick. We just have to be vigilant. Too bad there is no vaccine for humans. Lyme can be a debilitating disease.

I don't get ticks now (crossing fingers) but several years ago, I had 36 (yes, I counted them) over one summer . Both dog AND deer ticks. I am/was a gardener, and we have 3 acres that is heavily wooded. Tick haven, apparently. Anyway, that experience truly gave me the creeps, especially as my DH has had Lyme Disease twice in the past.

Now we have the property sprayed (IPM) for ticks, three times a year. And I am more than happy to report that I have not had any on me since!!! Yay!

We don’t have ticks in our yard (fingers crossed) but they’re increasingly in the woods in our general area. We went to a woodsy area about an hour from here a few weeks ago, and that night I found a tick on (in?) the back of my neck.

I haven't seen any in our current location, but we're more "in-town" now. I'm sure they're out there,

I used to work in lawn care, and ticks were ever present. I've pulled out dozens of attached ticks over the years. Thankfully, never had any sort of reaction..

Yellow jackets, fire ants, different story.

You need some chickens or possums. I have lived in the woods for 25 years and never had a tick on me/dog/children. We do regularly get visited by possums in the winter so I know they are about and very welcome!!

When we lived in suburban Chicago I felt something bite the back of my thigh - turned out to be a deer tick and my MD started me on a course of antibiotics (I think) just in case. Many years previously my Gordon Setter had a large tick on her lip with babies under it - the grossest thing I have ever seen.

Two weeks ago DH took our dog hiking in what is called The Game Lands. I did not go as I hate hiking there. They both came back with ticks - none attached to DH but on his clothes. However I pulled over 20 off our dog. She is on Bravecto and in the past we have found a tick or two in her bed, either dead or dying which is how it works. That evening I was sitting on the couch reading and felt something on my neck - a walking tick. The next morning while making the bed I found one under DH's pillow. We did body checks for a couple of days and I still get the willies just thinking about it.

We generally don't have a problem around the house which is in a large open area - they seem to prefer the woods that ring our perimeter. We have possum but it would take an army of them to clear the woods.

Ticks (generally) do not like mown grass. They go out to the end of the plant and wait for living carbon to go by, then hitch a ride.

For about the last 6 years or so, I have used an essential oil based spray for repellant. I might get one crawling on me after a ride on a horse in the woods or through really tall grass.

This year, I bought somme high-concentration DEET, as I believed the hysteria (that is not the right word, but I cannot find the correct one, atm…) about them that I was seeing on some hiking groups. Coated myself in that poison several times before mowing or riding. NEVER had so many ticks in my life. DH probaly pulled 8 off of my back, more than once.

I went back to my EO stuff, and might have had 1 since. I rode a horse in the woods yesterday, and I have a bite from something, but NO attached ticks.

The spray is a combo of eucalyptus, catnip, cedar wood, citronella, and geranium EO’s, and I add lemongrass and peppermint to it.

If the chickens and possums worked for ticks, I would have WAY fewer ticks.

Aok, don't get me started on yellow jackets! I'm always stocked with Raid's Wasp spray. :)

Arcy, we have lots of possums.

Spring, we keep the area around the house mowed, but we have fields, an orchard, and lots of areas for them to live.

We do spray for spiders and other bugs which bother me more than ticks do. I have to laugh at all the times I've ran inside asking DH if a spider is on my back! lol

@Springroz is the spray you use and doctor up readily available? Name? I'd love to try that.

It's only been in the last 20 years or so that I recall ticks & tick awareness being a big deal here, I don't remember them even being mentioned when I was a kid playing outdoors and rolling around on the grass. I am terrified of them. First, because they're gross, and second because of Lyme disease. A friend of ours has been struggling with it for several years, and it's shocking how it has affected him. A healthy, very active man with 3 young children turned into the shadow of his former self - at times he looked like an underweight geriatric man with crippling arthritis. He spent the better part of a year sleeping in a lazy boy because his joints were too sore to go up the stairs, or get in and out of the the bed. He's doing much better now, but still experiences flare-ups and bad days. His quality of life has been affected so much. My DH found a tiny deer tick on his shoulder early last fall and, thank goodness, his doctor prescribed an precautionary round of antibiotics, which I understand can prevent Lyme disease from progressing if caught early enough.

PA is the worst (or at least was) state for infestation of deer ticks and #s of people with lyme disease. I know multiple people who have Lyme disease-- 3 of which have been severe and debilitating on some level. To say folks around here are hypervigilant is an understatement-- especially with so many hiking trails, green spaces and forests nearby.

My home is not at great risk for deer ticks-- but when I lived on a farm a number of years ago and had 2 dogs, I had a large mowed yard area surrounded by wooded areas, untamed vegetation and sheep. I was very concerned. Like Springroz I used an essential oils spray (homemade) on the overgrown vegetation and kept the dogs away from the other areas .. i don't remember what all was in it but i am pretty sure it included lavender and lemon verbena. I found a few ticks on the dogs over the 5 yr i lived there-- none in the house or on me. Of course the dogs had flea & tick treatments regularly.

Smh, like you as a kid, I never thought about ticks. I lived in town so I don't know if that made a difference or not.

When I was away at Girl Scout Camp I woke up one morning seeing something dark. I looked in the mirror and there was a tick stuck right above my bottom eye lashes on the raw part of the skin, next to the eyeball. I ran out of the cabin screaming for my life. lol

One of the best dogs we ever had showed up here one day and he had ticks all over him. DH took him to the vet and had him cleaned up. We called him Boone Dog. After three years he died of tick disease.

Boone was DH's dog (right) and a year later my Gracie Girl died of cancer. They became BFF's

Beautiful pup dogs, Oak.

We live in a clearing in the woods. Way back, no deer ticks, but for the past 20 years or so, lots.

What helps is tucking pantlegs into socks. We use Sawyer’s spray (permethrin) on shoes, socks, pantlegs. We also check fo ticks. Dogs used to bring them indoors. NOTE: ticks have an affinity for warmth, CO2, motion, and the compound like urea and ammonia from the breakdown of urine. If you tend to have your dog do its potty in a certain area, that area may have many more ticks. True. So you can water down and perhaps treat that area.

Ticks like to hang out on tall grass, siding, stems, brush and ”seek” — always at the standby, legs ready to quickly grasp and cling to a passerby — animal or human.

A lot of people get their yards sprayed, but permethrin is often used. This chemical is very toxic to bees (and bees are already being challenged environmentally and with various insecticides. I’ve observed a lawn care company that markets itself as ”green” habitate friendly, broadcast spraying permethrin on a neighbors yard and perimeter during a sunny day when bees are active. So, please don’t count on thses sorts of companies to help us safeguard bees.

If you have had a deer tick attached to you/embedded in your skin for a number of hours, go to your doctor within a few days. There is a narrow window when the antibiotic doxycycline can be effective for preventing Lyme Disease. The dose is Two (2) 100 mg capsules, taken together.

Note: Doxycycline Hyclate is a medication that breaks down into nasty compounds over time. So, check with your doctor or pharmacist, but, last I read, you do not want to take old, or leftover old doxycycline.

There are some good tools for removing embedded deer ticks. But, whatever you do, don’t apply any pressure to the ticks abdomend or thorax. Grab it just behind the head with very thin point tweezers, and gently, slowly, steadily pull the tick straight out. (If you go slowly, the tick might have enough time to release it’s legs.)

It is not nice to have a tick bite or a bit of a deer tick left in your tissue. It can readdy itch like crazy and scratching only makes things worse. I find that oral or topical Benadryl helps tremendously to stop the intense itching.

Note: a ”bullseye” ring of inflamed tissue is not a requisite diagnostic indicator of Lyme infection.

And, one can have Lyme Disease antibodies and not have frank Lyme Disease (as I have been told by my doctor. It may just indicate that your body’s immune system has met up with Lyme pathogens.

Just for clarification, Deer Ticks are not prevalent in OK. They have other kinds of ticks that carry other diseases.. but not deer ticks. I cannot say if the essential oil treatment works there. I would focus on the ticks in your region.

We live on a 2 acre wooded lot. And we have ticks. Every day I check the dogs. Geeze I hate them! I used to have the yard treated for them, but I hate to do that since it tends to take out the pollinators too.

My oldest dog can't handle the meds for preventative, and that doesn't keep the ticks & fleas off of them anyway. Just kills them if they bite.

I felt something tickling my neck 2 nights ago, right after I walked through a spider web. I thought it was the spider, but noooooooo... it was a freaking tick! At least it hadn't attached.

We've had so much rain in central Oklahoma, the mosquitoes are unbearable this year! And the ticks won't be far behind.

I live in suburbia on a peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. We are not at all rural, but we have a large deer population and they are brazen. In fact, just this afternoon I was watering plants outside when I looked up and saw two huge bucks walking down the street. My RING camera captured them (see below). A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on my porch when I heard a lot of noise in my neighbor's front yard. I looked over and these same two bucks were just hanging out there, one was lying down and the other was rambling around. They stuck around for 30 minutes, with people and cars gping by just 15 feet from them. Eventually one of them started chewing on my neighbor's hosta so I got up and started waving my arms at them to scare them away. With more and more development, there is no where for them to go on our peninsula as they keep reproducing.

I find at least one tick on me every year. Sometimes they are deer ticks and other times they are regular ticks. H has already had one this year, a few weeks ago. Our dogs occasionally get them as well.

Edit, oops, the pic is pretty small. They were big guys.

When we had a dog, we used the tick/flea medication and it worked great. We never saw a tick on her. I remember one that must have been on her and I was holding her, only to find a tick on my arm. It must have fallen off of her due to the meds. I saw it before it could bite.

We have woods around us - mainly across the street from us. Wooded area with lots cleared out for homes. Out lot is about an acre and a fourth, still lots of trees, but not wooded. We honestly have not had a tick problem. Our problem is usually mosquitos. As others mentioned, I will not have our yard sprayed for mosquitos or ticks. Our pest control company mentioned the mosquito treatment one year. Since I worked at a university, on an agricultural campus, it was easy for me to investigate the chemicals used in the spray. Not only could it affect bees, but it was also potentially harmful to birds. No way. We do see alot of deer who live in the woods, but not so much this time of year. When it's hot, they tend to stay in the woods. So that helps with ticks.

Have ya'll heard of the tick borne disease Alpha-gal syndrome? It can cause a life threatening allergy to meat! It comes from the Lone Star tick. It must be new or worse this year as I've seen news reports on it a few times recently. Not sure where the Lone Star tick lives.