Ticks In The Winter?

[Guest KsFrets]

This is a first. It's DECEMBER for goodness sake! The last tick I saw was in early September. The last application of Front Line was late September. It's been freezing outside at night for the last couple months. Earlier this week I was giving Magnus scritches... felt a bump... checked it out... and removed a happy healthy live tick! Then just yesterday, the exact same thing happened with MamaLisa! I hope it's just a fluke. After extensive investigations, no more ticks have been found on the three M's or their beds.

 

I've had dogs for nearly half a century, and have never seen a tick in December! Where in the world did they come from? How did they survive? Where did the poopers pick them up from?

[MP_the4pack]

I've come to the conclusion that there are no ticks in summer, JUST winter. I've found ticks on my girls with 4 inches of snow on the ground in Jan. It sucks. (I'm in NJ) The ticks I find are the deer ticks. Wood/dog ticks are in the late spring early summer. Nothing in the summer and the deer ticks start in the fall. That's what I've seen lately.

[macoduck]

Every year we seem to be tick-free until November/December/January. We rarely see them the rest of the year. I think the little boogers seem to want one last hurrah before the deep freeze of winter.

[gryhnd_adoptee]

Do you by chance have a wood burning stove or fireplace, and store wood nearby? They often burrow into the bark to hibernate and come up when it warms up if wood is stored in a bit warmer garage, or an inside firebox.

 

We often have mosquitos in the house long after they are gone outside. They hibernate in the wood too, and come out to feast when we bring the wood inside the house each night for the fireplace.

Edited December 9, 2010 by gryhnd_adoptee

[Lexi]

Bugs, yuck!!! It's 26°F outside and I saw a big spider hanging from a web right outside the door at grocery store. I get the feeling he was waiting for somebody to walk under him so he could jump on and get a free ride to a warm house.

[greyhoundlov]

Ticks never go away.

[Guest KsFrets]

We don't have any wood around, or a wood burning stove. We do go running every evening through a golf course and a large field with a creek and ditches, and there are LOTS of very deep leave piles the form in the low parts. The dogs totally LOVE charging through these piles and rooting through them looking for goodies like squirrel poo and bunny nests. Hmmmmm as deep and damp as these leave drifts are... I wonder if ticks are surviving in there just waiting for warm doggies....

[RobinM]

We have never had fleas, but we do this year and this time of year. I don;t get it either. I think (and I say that gingerly) we may be getting it under control!