Ticks and Pug Dogs
If you’re a Pug dog owner, then you need to be particularly attentive when spring rolls around and ticks become a real threat. Ticks are technically called “Rhipicephalus Sanquineus”, but more importantly these blood-sucking bugs can carry germs and diseases that can make you or your Pug sick. In fact, ticks can give people diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and ticks can pass on diseases that can even be fatal to Pug dogs!
Quite simply, ticks are parasites that live on the blood of their victims. Ticks have been blamed for causing the spread of disease among both people and dogs. In fact, they were shown to be behind the famous mass deaths of military dogs during the Vietnam War.
Although there are several different species of ticks (wood tick, brown Pug tick, etc.), a tick by any other name is still a tick. Because of resistance to insecticides, the tick is one of the most difficult external parasites to control.
This can really gross people out, but it’s absolutely true that a female tick can produce several thousand eggs - yuck! They usually lay their eggs under the carpet, in a little whole in the baseboard, or some other dark and out-of-the-way place. Ticks lay their eggs in a safe place but never on the body of their victim. Once the eggs hatch after a month or so, they turn into larvae. Tick larvae seek out their first host, where they’ll suck down some blood and then detach to go find a place to hide out.
Six to twenty-three days later, the larvae molt and become eight-legged nymphs. The nymphs obtain another blood meal from a Pug, drop off again and go into hiding. Twelve to twenty-nine days later, the nymph tick molts and becomes an adult. As an adult, it once more seeks the Pug, engorges blood, and mates.
It’s pretty amazing but an adult tick can last for three years inside with out sucking the blood of a host. That’s pretty alarming and can be sad news for Pug dog owners, as this means you can have ticks lurking in ambush in the house or in the yard.
Once the tick finds its way outside, it will climb up into a bush, tall grass or a tree to lay in wait for a new host. A perfect opportunity for a tick is when a Pug dog walks under a branch or goes potty in tall grass. A tick can jump pretty far as well.
A tick inside a home will hang out in dark, hidden places awaiting a chance to latch-on to a host. Here’s a shocking fact, but a tick inside the house can hang out for up to three months lying in wait for a Pug or person to walk by. And when the trap is sprung, and your dog or you walk by, the tick can instantly “wake up” and spring onto the victim in a blink of the eye.
Popularity: 5% [?]