This post was updated 6/15/2020 for a new way of removing ticks.
The Dangers
Dehydration, exposure, animal attacks, injury, cars, errant mountain cyclists.
There are a lot of dangers out in the wild, and most of them are really nothing to be worried about or totally manageable.
You can stash your food so animals don’t get it, you discourage bears from eating you and your stuff, and cyclists are scarce in the backcountry.
Ticks, though, are less directly manageable. They’re tiny, they’re quiet, and they suck.
Ticks
Quiet Risks of the Backcountry
Ticks are often overlooked until you encounter them. They really shouldn’t be, but they also shouldn’t keep you out of the wilderness.
These aren’t just risks to you, though. They are risks to your dog.
Many ticks carry diseases, some of which are easily cured, others which aren’t. The worst of those are the least likely to occur, which is good news. Some of the lesser known diseases are babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF). The most well known one is Lyme Disease. They’re all not good, but they’re easily treated with antibiotics and anti-parasitic treatments.
These diseases can affect both you and your dog, which means protecting both of you is important.
The Good News
Not all ticks carry all diseases. Only about 2% of blacklegged or deer ticks, the vector for Lyme disease, carry it. And many ticks, such as the brown dog tick, which is the vector for hepatozoonosis, are rare in the back country. Of those diseases, many take a few hours to a couple days for the disease to transfer from the biter to the bitee. This means even if you see a tick latched on, you might have a chance to remove it before something is transferred.
This means even if you find a tick, not all is lost. Even if it’s embedded, you have a great chance of no problems, especially if it’s still flat and not engorged. And, since there are so few tick bites that are infectious, even if it is engorged, you can keep an eye on the area.
The biggest problem comes from tick bites that go unnoticed, where you can’t keep track of the affected area. This can cause an infection from the puncture of the bite, a bacterial or parasitic infection from the tick, or the familiar ring of Lyme disease.
Superficial punctures and infections are generally easily taken care of and, if you catch it, any other diseases are treatable in prudent time.
Another advantage of catching the tick is that you can save it, and if an infection happens, you can have it tested.
All of this said, you don’t need to remember separate procedures for you and your dog. The same diseases are transferable from ticks, the way to remove them are the same, and the symptoms are largely the same. The biggest thing to remember is that you have body awareness and a way to express how you feel, your dog doesn’t.
How To Manage Tick Risks
There are a few precautions to manage risk of ticks, and I recommend following as many of them as you can and still enjoy your trek.
For humans
- Tuck your pants into your socks or gaiters.
- Spray your equipment and clothing down with a permetherin spray a day or two before going.
- Wear an insect repellant such as DEET or, my favorite, picaridin
- Avoid brushy areas, especially those close to water. This means staying on trail.
- Check for ticks at the end of the day. Especially check in and around your hair, the backs of your legs, between your legs, your bellybutton, ,under your arms, and behind your ears.
For dogs
- Make sure they have a tick and flea treatment that’s current for the entire trek.
- Give them an insecticide treatment such as picaridin or permethrin, like Sawyer Picaridin Treatment for Dogs, a few days before going (so you can monitor for adverse reaction before leaving)
- Try to keep your dog out of brush during tick season
- Check your dog for ticks at the end of the day. Be sure to check their feet, their rump, their belly, and the insides of their legs, along with their back.
- Pet your dog.
One of the best things to do is to pet your dog. You would be surprised how easy it is to find an errant bump or tick just scratching around their neck and ears.
What About the Chemicals?
A lot of people are afraid to try some insecticides because they contain chemicals they don’t understand.
Permethrin is an artificial version of an oil found in the chrysanthemum flower. It poses incredibly little risk to humans when wet and not much danger to dogs when wet. It’s odorless, colorless, and completely harmless to dogs and humans when dry. In addition, when fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, chiggers, or other insects touch it when dry, they die. Just don’t use it wet around cats.
Picaridin is similar to DEET in that in doesn’t kill insects, only repels them. That said, it’s far, far less likely to cause irritation than DEET or other repellants, and is just as effective as 100% DEET formulations.
In the end, these are all far safer for you and your dog than many other options, including “natural” remedies. This is partially because they have standardized testing for toxicity and efficacy. These also last a lot longer than homemade vinegar and oil remedies, and aren’t toxic to dogs like many essential oils are.
Permethrin can last up to six weeks and multiple dips in lakes on your dog. It can last equally long on your clothing and through a few washes.
What if You Find a Tick?
I always, always carry a tick removal tool as part of my medical kit. Until I started treating my dog with a topical repellent, it was often the only medical device used when I went out. I’ve tried tweezers, tick keys, and “tick twisters”.
There are three safe ways to remove ticks, only three.
1. Tweezers. Especially pointed ones. These allow you to grasp the tick on it’s head and pull it completely out without applying pressure on its body.
Pulling it out by its body is problematic for two reasons. First, the body may detach from the head, and leave the head in your skin which can lead to infection. Second, it can cause the tick to regurgitate its meal into you, greatly increasing the chance of infection and disease.
2. A tick key. This is a small metal or plastic tool with a teardrop shaped hole. You put the hole against your or your dog’s skin and pull it so the tick ends up in the point of the teardrop. This gently pulls the entire tick out. The problem with a tick key is it can be difficult to get under the head and you can end up injuring the body of the tick, which is problematic.
3. Tick “twisters”. This is a device which has a thin, forked end you can spin around a central axis. Basically it wedges between the head of the tick and the skin it’s on. You rotate it gently and it forces the tick to release its grip. This has become my preferred way of getting ticks off because it doesn’t damage the tick, so there’s almost no chance of them regurgitating back into the area they’re attached to.
What shouldn’t you do to take ticks off?
Burn them, squeeze them, flick them, anything like that. You absolutely do not want to hurt them or cause them trauma. When a tick is hurt they may regurgitate what it has sucked up back into the host, which can transmit a lot more of a pathogen into what it latched on to. Also, a burned tick cannot be tested for insect transmitted diseases like Lyme Disease.
I recommend keeping tweezers and twisters in your medical kit. Tweezers are great all-purpose tools and the tick twister weighs a scant couple grams and removes ticks so easily it’s a no-brainer.
A Manageable Risk
Yes, ticks are gross and potentially harmful. And they’re out there.
With a few precautions and the right tools, though, you don’t need to worry. Especially if you’ve treated your clothing, gear, and dog with the right chemicals and are checking you and your pup at the end of the day.
Have you been bitten? What do you do to keep them at bay?
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