The Telltale Tickle of Ticks: Part 4 Preventing The Tickle
- Nina Munckhof
- Apr 28
- 6 min read
I'm sure that by now your brain is playing tricks on you, you've been feeling that tell-tale tickle.... but there's nothing there! (Our brains are pretty amazing things!) How do you ensure that you don't actually feel that tickle of a tick crawling across your skin?
There are several ways you can prevent tick bites and tick born disease. To make it manageable, I'm going to break it down into spheres of influence or ripples. The “spheres of influence” concept originally comes from geopolitics, for example: regions that a country could sway or control. Over time, it made its way into psychology, education, and public health to describe the layers of influence we each have—starting with ourselves and rippling outward to family, community, and society.
The ripples of tick prevention start small, it starts with you, "The Human Habitat" and the choices you make ripple outward. How we care for our pets and "Critter Companions" ripples to preventative efforts in our "Backyard Biomes", and "The Wild Edge" of parks and trails in our neighborhoods. Your choices even ripple beyond in an "Ecosystem Echo" when you share your knowledge to friends and family.
Let's zoom in...
The Human Habitat
Prevention starts with you, as well as the other two legged members of the household. While you might be the smallest circle in the graphics, you influence all the circles to varying degrees! Your habits and choices are the first line of defense against these eight-legged critters!
Some of these choices include:
Educating yourself about tick geography & lifecycle, which you have already decided to do by reading my articles!
knowing what species are in your area and their likelihood of transmitting disease helps empower your decisions, which influences all your tick prevention spheres. Don't think you can remember it all? Download the Tell-tale Tickle of Ticks Quick Guide PDF for a full-colour reference to keep handy!
Stay updated on tick activity in your region. Websites like ETick , Tick Talk Canada, and the Merck Tick Map Canada all keep updated information, and are great resources to support when you do find a tick!
Think about where you walk, hike, and play! Is it tick season? Is there lots of deer or rodents in the area that might increase tick populations? Can you avoid bushes and shrubs, or do you need to dress appropriately and apply spray?
Dress to Prevent! Wear long sleeves and pants instead of shorts and a hat! Light colours make it easier to see ticks if they're crawling on you. Tuck your pants into your socks or purchase a pair of gaiters to cover your shoes and pants! (I know, Steve Erkel styling isn't fashionable, but it works!)
Use bug repellents! Make sure to spray your body completely and focus on areas where clothing meets the skin! Products containing DEET do work best. If you are going a more natural route, you will need to spray liberally and often. Choose what works best for you.
Daily tick checks! Especially after hikes or time in grassy/wooded areas—use a mirror or buddy system. Make it fun and cue up your favourite music app and look up Brad Paisley's Check You for Ticks. (LOL, I've linked Spotify for you.) Have a shower to rinse any ticks off your skin, and comb your hair to check for any embedded ticks.
Tick removal kit! It is best to remove a tick as soon as you find it! Carry a tick key/hook or fine-tipped tweezers, and antiseptic wipes—especially if you’re in endemic areas. If you already carry a small first aid kit on your hikes it's an easy addition! Your fingers will also work to pluck that tick out in a pinch! If you need a tick hook, let me know! You can buy a 3 pack of tick hooks with a info slip summarizing the info you learned from The Tell-Tale Tickle of Ticks! Send me a message, and I'll get it to you! Bonus: this tick removal kit can also be used on your pets!
Critter Companions
Our pets are often the reason we became aware of ticks! We educate ourselves so we can take care of their health and build that bond with them!
Daily tick checks: Especially under collars, between toes, and behind ears. This will often prevent a tick from walking off your pet onto you, your clothes or furniture!
Grooming and bathing: Even just a quick rinse with water can help dislodge unattached ticks. Building up your pet's comfort with frequent brushing and combing with a fine comb makes your tick checks even easier! Build up this skill with games and co-operative care practice.
Veterinary preventatives: Topical treatments, collars, or oral meds recommended by a vet. If you miss a tick on your check, you know it will be killed. Removing it as soon as you notice is still the best prevention of tick-borne disease. Discuss with your veterinary team which method is best for your pet. Research has shown that areas where pets are on preventatives has reduced populations of ticks in inhabited areas!
Discuss disease testing with your veterinarian if you are concerned about tick-borne disease! Many vet clinics have quick in-clinic tests available, and can also send samples out to labs for further testing!
Avoid high-risk areas on your walks. Long grass, leaf piles, or brush during peak tick season are ideal areas to pick up a tick! Stick to wider, cleared paths - not the the little deer trails on the side of the hill! This also applies to your backyard!
The Backyard Biome
If you and your pet are blessed to have access to their own backyard to explore and play in, this area is your next ripple outward! After building your prevention habits around yourself and your pet, your home and yard is the next area to focus on. Preventing ticks in your backyard involves a preventing tick hosts from accessing your yard, and decreasing those ideal areas that ticks thrive in!
Keep grass short: Mow regularly to reduce humidity and hiding spots for ticks.
Trim trees and shrubs to decrease tick habitats. Increased sunlight exposure to dries out potential tick habitats and decreases access areas for ticks to quest and grasp onto you.
Clear leaf litter and brush as ticks love damp, shaded areas! Yes, that means you need to clean up all your trimmings from your trees and shrubs too!
Prevent deer and rodent access by fencing your yard securely and monitoring areas where rodents might live like your compost bin, bird feeders or wood piles.
Treat infested areas by calling a professional pest control company, or placing tick tubes in areas your pet's cannot access!
The Wild Edge
We are blessed to live in an incredible area with parks, trails, and shared green spaces within our community! Your choices around tick prevention at home for yourself and your pet are linked to the area's you explore with your dog! The eight-legged critter we're talking about wanders through all these areas through out it's lifecycle. Research has shown that area's where the pet owners and their community focuses on tick prevention, there are less ticks and less tick disease. There's a few ways to build that tick-free ripple in your community:
Request Trail signage in parks and trails about tick life-cycle and prevention, especially during peak tick season.
Stick to Paved/Gravel Paths as much as possible to prevent ticks hitching a ride while you go for your walk.
Community-wide prevention through wild-life fencing, rodent control, landscape management and targeted, environmentally safe treatment of infested areas by your local government.
Promote Tick Education by seeking out speakers for your schools, and local groups to create local awareness. Share the knowledge you've learned! This ripples into your Ecosystem Echo!
The Echosystem Echo
Every choice you make about tick prevention will ripple outwards. The world today is interconnected in so many ways, which means we have so many ways we can spread that ripple outwards!
Tell family and friends, so they can learn and share!
Share info on social media, blogs, community boards. We all know how just a little share can go viral!
Support tick awareness programs like eTick and tick mapping programs by submitting your tick information to support more research!
Thank you for building your ripple by choosing to read the Tell-tale Tickle of Tick blog series! You've built your knowledge, you've learned how to apply it, and now you're aware of how your choices can ripple out past your personal sphere of influence!
Need a refresher, or missed a couple of the blogs in the series? Here's quick links to them:
You can also download your copy of the Tell-tale Tickle of Ticks Quick Reference Guide to have a full-colour, 8 page reference at your fingertips! Extend that ripple of prevention and share the links to the blogs and the guide with your family & friends!