You need to go to the vet and get some Frontline or another tick med recommended by the vet for a puppy that young. Do NOT use any product you can buy at a retail store on the puppy. Many of those products are highly toxic and have been implicated in the poisoning deaths of many pets.

Until you get the med from the vet, just keep picking as many ticks off the puppy as possible.

Laurie

Hello Laurie thanx very much but he is too young for frontline. If he was 4 days older he could have Advantix put on him. The lady said just the 4 days at his age could make it dangerous. Any other ideas? My friend is still picking. What about a home remedy of some kind that is not toxic???
Thanx on retail store stuff. I knew about Hartz.

O yeah I should have said that 3 of the places we went was Vets but they have nothing for that young of dog. There must be some thing that can be used and not be toxic to a little puppy???

Are you sure they're ticks? Have any embedded themselves an engorged? Might they be fleas?

Sorry if that's a stupid question.

Tiny ticks may be deer ticks which can carry Lyme disease. These ticks always remain very small. The puppy will need testing and everyone in the house should check each other to see if any got on you. They can be hard to see, so research symptoms so you can watch for it and also check with your dr. about whether you should be tested. Untreated the disease can sometimes become serious, but antibiotics given early on can get rid of it.

If three vets can't come up with anything safe and effective for a puppy that young, then I would have to assume that there is nothing safe to use on him. Your friend is just going to have to pick them off by hand.

May I ask why this puppy was taken away from his littermates and mother so early? Is your friend aware that weaning before 8 weeks of age may result in lifelong socialization problems for the puppy?

Laurie

Use a flea comb and I think maybe you are talking about seed ticks (or what we call seed ticks) They are super tiny but they are more visible once they have had a chance to feed- if that is what they are I have never gotten one on me and don't think they bite on humans. They are a pain to get rid of and sometimes just a bath in plain water will help get rinse out of the fur if they are not latched on.

Yes we are sure they are ticks on the puppy and so far we have not found any of them on us but when we had the puppy in our lap and they got on the towels. We have been picking picking picking all day and all nite giving the puppy nap time sometimes. When we think we have most of them then we see lots and lots on the blanket he is sleeping on but we have stopped for tonite.
Laurie is that really true cuz the puppy came from the shelter and they must know if that were for real. I got my dog when he was 8 weeks old but that is cuz that is what the breeder wanted to wait until they were 8 weeks old.
We used a flea comb and it helped some but the tweezers did best. I hope they do not bite humans cuz I feel creepy crawly and need to take another shower. My dog will be ok cuz he is on frontline right? I do not want to take a chance of him getting sick from that puppy.
My friend will call the shelter and raise H$!! tomorrow when they open. How can they not know about these ticks?

Frontline will not prevent ticks from getting on and biting your dog. It will, however, help to kill ticks after they bite your dog, but it's not 100% effective even then. According to a vet on another pet forum, Advantix does very little or nothing to control or kill ticks. That same vet recommends the Prevent-tic collar in combination with Frontline for tick control, but the Prevent-tic collar is somewhat toxic and not safe for use around cats or very small or young dogs. The Prevent-tic collar is an actual tick repellent, so it should prevent ticks from even getting on your dog.

Yes, it's really true about puppies (and kittens) requiring AT LEAST 8 weeks of socialization with their mothers and litters before weaning. If the puppy was as heavily infested with ticks as reported, obviously the shelter is poorly run. They probably don't care (or don't know) about the long term effects of early weaning. They just want to get the animals out of their shelter as quickly as possible.

Laurie

I don't know how "expert" my advice is but if that were my dog the first thing I would have done is bathed and bathed him with Joy dish detergent. I don't remember where I've read it but something about the lemon in it gets rid of flea really good but still I'd have tried to drown those nasty ticks off. I've probably given a million dog baths in Joy and even several cat baths too and this has never made anyone sick and they've all live quite long lives. I do know that I've read about using Joy to give dogs baths quite a few times over the years. I guess research it to make sure there are no warnings about it. But when I had my dogs I kept Joy just for dog shampoo. They never got any skin irritation from Joy either...it seems like I recall the articles saying something about the ph was good in Joy but I/they could be wrong...

Laurie we will have to check into that about Advantix cuz it was one of the things you can use at 7 weeks old. Mebbe my friends puppy will not have problems. I am so glad that I did not get my dog until he was 8 weeks old. He is a good dog and is better behaved than lots of other dogs I see.
We used dawn Arkansas. That it some thing we were told to try which helped float off a few of them. The puppy would get cold and shiver but we did try baths twice. I think that was too much. He still has some ticks on him tho. We got most of them but will get the rest of them today.

I don't know about Dawn...I just know that Joy is the one that was specifically named.

Good luck...I'm sure you'll get them nasty old critters eventually! If any do get on your dog, the frontline will kill them. I'd suggest to vacuum the carpet and furniture real good too!

I think a good soapy bath would do wonders. A natural soap product is a mild insecticide. I think if the ticks are not attached, that a good thorough washing would help. It might not get all of them, but your goal at this point may be to reduce the numbers until the pup is of an age where it can take some frontline.

Look for an organic soap with neem oil in it. Buddy Wash makes such a product but I am sure there are others.
Do a web search for botanical oil tick repellent... I bet you find something...

I found this:

Here is a link that might be useful: Botanical Citronella Shampoo

When we took out pup to the Vet when we first got him at 6 weeks, he had a tick. The Vet took care of it. He said they used the word dip, but they actually gently sprayed something that was very safe, then bathed him. I don't understand why your Vet would not take care of your dog.

Sammy

Along the lines of bathing... try baby shampoo. It works mostly the same as any other soap, but it won't strip the skin of oils. Some of us gardeners use baby shampoo in our gardens because of it's bug killing ability. As I recall, the fatty acids in the soap breaks down the buggy's central nervous system and kills them. It would probably work best if you could soap up puppy and let him stay lathered for 15 minutes or so.

Q

Were you able to find something to get rid of the ticks?
What did the shelter say about the pup's tick problem?

How big are these ticks, and how many are there? I would get those ticks off as fast as I could--shaving the dog if necessary, so I could see them and get at them. Ask the vet about the wisdom of doing that. They can be killers, depending on how many there are of them and the dog's condition.

In Japan, about 15 years ago, we had a dog with long thick fur who got infested with teensy ticks--hundreds--maybe thousands of them--and we never knew it until too late, and she died.

She was a 6-year-old, very healthy dog, but began to have convulsions once in a while. At first a vet thought she had epilepsy, then that she had kidney damage from being poisoned. But where we lived, it was impossible for her to have been poisoned.

It was a bad year for dog ticks, and we didn't know that there could be hundreds of them lurking on the underside of a leaf of grass, even. And they were so tiny that even if one got on your hand, you wouldn't know it was a live creature until you saw it moving. The last time I took our dog to the vet, I noticed lots of small ticks on the floor of his waiting room. They had gorged on her blood and fallen off, and now they were big enough to see--like pepper grains. She died that day on the way home in our car.

The vet denied that the ticks could have been responsible, but later I read that each tick has a tiny amount of venom, so it is my opinion that the venom from the bites of thousands of tiny ticks could have poisoned her. It infuriated me some weeks later to hear the same vet telling another pet owner that ticks could poison their dog. He never admitted it to me, but I feel sure I was the one who gave him the idea.

If I had known then what I learned from Pepper's death, I would have clipped her and shaved her all over and made sure of getting rid of as many ticks as possible. But we didn't know ticks could be so small, having always seen only medium to large ones on her that she would pick up on a walk, and it was easy enough to pick them off.

Before we got another dog that year, we got a device that burned weeds and burned all the dirt in our yard, while I took white rags and wiped under every plant leaf that had suspicious fuzzy brown stuff (infant ticks) clinging to its tip. Then I would get them off the cloth using duct tape or else burn it.

I would vacuum and use sticky tape and do anything possible to get rid of any ticks in the house. They probably won't drop off the puppy until they have finished their meal, so your friends has a few days' leeway. Of course, it was dog ticks in Japan that I had that experience with, and the ones on your friend's dog may be a different kind.

Sorry for the horror story, but I hope it may help someone else. I hope your friend's puppy does well.

Pepper:

I am so very sorry that you lost your dog to ticks. That is just terrible! I am glad my friends dog is ok. Yeah they were very tiny tiny ticks and looked like dirt at first. We picked every single one of them off and it took 3 days to get every one. The lady at the shelter acted like she was in shock about this. We have a very poor shelter with poor housing so I would like to think they do what they can. That is what my brother said any way.

any food grade diatomaceous earth will work perfectly safe for puppies. for fleas and tics you apply it on the fur. Here's just one link that describes it. You can get food grade DE here or at your local feed store or lawn place, the sooner the better. Just make sure it's Food grade, and follow directions for applications. I keep DE with me at all times, I use it on my kennel area, and tak eit with me camping etc. Stuff is wonderful IMO.

Here is a link that might be useful: all natural flea killer

First off, I'm sorry your friend is dealing with this problem. Second, what kind of shelter adopts out an underaged puppy infested with ticks?

I have raised a number of foster kittens, and some were infested with fleas and ticks. We treated them with meds that were not approved for such young kittens. I am shocked that a legitimate shelter would adopt out such a young puppy and that several vets wouldn't treat it effectively. Just because meds aren't approved for such young animals doesn't mean they haven't been used for years with good results. Something doesn't add up here.

You need to get this puppy to a vet who will adequately treat it. There is no reason not to treat an underaged puppy. Approvals with animal meds are the same as with human meds. They are often used outside of the range of their official approvals with no ill effects. Any vet worth their salt will know this and be able to handle it. A parasite-infested puppy is hardly earth-shattering veterinary science.

I'm still concerned that a shelter is sending home six-week old puppies infested with any kind of parasite.

I always write things wrong and people do not understand what I am saying so I apologize for that.
We never saw any of the Vets. One place we called here in our town and they did not have anything for a 6 week old puppy and it was almost closing time. We went to another town and could not find anything. We went to another town and stopped at a Vet office. We talked to the receptionist while she was busy with other people too. It was almost time for the other Vet office to close so we left there before we really finished talking to the receptionist so we could get to the other place before they closed. They did not have anything to put on a 6 week old puppy. So we never saw a Vet.
My friend does not need anything now cuz we picked all the ticks off.
But you would think after talking to two different receptionist and they know the puppy was only 6 weeks old and had hundreds of ticks that they would have asked their Vet if what jenc511 said is true???
Anyhow, we spent hours and hours and worked all night and the next day picking off every single tick. The puppy has become very good with being handled!!
He is very cute. He reminds me of my dog when he was a puppy.

There isn't really anything safe that kills ticks in a 6 week old puppy. Usually puppies that young are not exposed to ticks because they are inside or otherwise protected, so it generally isn't a problem. Your friend's pup was a special situation.

Lots of shelters adopt out malnourished sick pets. It's unfortunately a situation that is very hard to control, especially in municiple shelters that are obligated by law to take in every single animal that is presented to them. You can't shut down the shelter and disinfect it. New animals with all sorts of diseases are brought in all the time to spread infectious agents to stressed out animals with questionable vaccine history and little previous veterinary care. At 6 weeks, the only vaccine the pup could have had was bordetella/kennel cough. If his mother was not vaccinated (and she most likely was not) then he had no maternal antibodies to protect him from anything. Sometimes litters of puppies are dropped off at shelters and the workers estimate their age based on teeth eruption, but there is some guesstimation done with that. The best thing for the shelter to do for animals dropped off that young is to get them out of the shelter before they get too sick and die.

As far as risk to humans- if you have flu-like symptoms such as achy joints or muscles, fatigue, fever, headache, nausea, etc then please see a doctor who is knowledgable in tick-born diseases and tell them of your exposure. Untreated lyme disease can be extremely debilitating or even fatal. Rocky mountain spotted fever will cause high fever (go figure) and you will feel like total crap (I had it once) but if you get treated you'll live and feel fine within a couple of days. The fever itself can be fatal, but the good news is that there are no lingering effects of RMSF like with Lyme disease. Also watch for similar signs in the puppy, such as shifting leg lameness, anorexia, lethargy, etc. Doxycycline is extremely effective in treating both diseases in dogs, and most dogs have no lingering effects of Lyme once treated.

Your friend is lucky to have such a good friend in you, willing to pull off all those ticks!

As much of a pain as it was, I think it's great that you deticked that puppy tick by tick! I probably would have done the same thing. You know what you did is safe for the puppy and effective too. When my cats were kittens they had fleas and we had to do physical control on the kittens themselves, but we went ahead and used a spray under furniture (where the cats could not get) where fleas might lay eggs to continue the control. Something to keep in mind in case they start turning up again.

FWIW, my neighbors all laugh at me because I weed my lawn that same way- physical control, one weed at a time- but we have the nicest and healthiest lawn on the block, so there must be something to it :^)

Q