Tick Prevention For Pug Dog Owners
No commentsWhen the warm weather comes, Pug owners everywhere should be ready to protect their dogs from ticks. Known scientifically as “Rhipicephalus Sanquineus”, these blood-sucking bugs can carry disease. Ticks can infect humans with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, cause paralysis, and can even kill our precious Pugs.
Referred to by most everyone as “ticks”, these parasites are blamed for carrying the micro-organism that caused the death of so many British war dogs in Singapore several decades ago. And during the Vietnam war, more than 300 U.S. war dogs had died mysteriously from tropical canine hemorrhagic syndrome, and canine hemorrhagic fever. Intensive studies resulted in the finger of guilt pointing directly at the ordinary tick.
There are several different species of ticks, from wood tick to brown Pug tick and many more. Unfortunately, ticks in general are pretty resistant to chemical insecticides, so they are really challenging to control in the wild.
It’s amazing but a female tick can lay up to five thousands eggs! Usually these eggs are places in the cracks of a kennel, under the carpet or hidden away out of sight. Interestingly, eggs are never laid upon the host, whether a Pug or a person. The eggs hatch into larvae after about a month or so. Next, the tick larvae will look for a host, such some blood and then fall off to rest.
A few weeks later, the tick larvae transform themselves into nymphs, which are sort of like teenagers. These nymphs looks for another host to grab some more blood, then fall off to rest again. Then, after another few weeks, the nymph transforms into an adult tick. Of course, now the adult tick is ready to seek out another host like a Pug, where it will fill up on blood and mate.
Adult ticks can live for up to 2 years without eating…which is really bad news for Pug dog owners, as this means you can have ticks lurking in ambush.
Out of doors, ticks climb onto branches and into foliage to await the arrival of a Pug host. A Pug napping under a bush or walking within jumping distance of the tick is all that is needed to provide the parasite with a host.
Once in your home, ticks will emerge from beneath rugs and carpeting, climb walls, table and chairs, and even up as high as wall pictures, to await the passing of a Pug. They may even have to wait up to six months, but a tick can instantly sense the approach of a Pug and jump on it as it passes.
Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Pug. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
