Found a Tick on My Dog: Lyme Risk in the Finger Lakes
Ticks on pets are common in the Finger Lakes, where blacklegged (deer) ticks carry Lyme disease. Remove the tick promptly with fine tweezers, grasping close to the skin and pulling straight out, then clean the area. Watch your dog for symptoms and talk to your vet about testing and prevention. Reducing tick habitat in your yard lowers the risk for both pets and people.
Remove the tick properly
Use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to your dog's skin as possible and pull straight out with steady pressure — don't twist or squeeze the body. Clean the bite area, and consider saving the tick in case identification is useful. The sooner a tick is removed, the lower the disease-transmission risk.
Lyme in the Finger Lakes is real
Blacklegged ticks that carry Lyme disease are well established across the Finger Lakes and Central New York, and both dogs and people are at risk. Talk to your veterinarian about tick prevention and, if warranted, Lyme testing and vaccination for your dog.
Reduce ticks where your pet plays
Ticks concentrate in shaded leaf litter, tall grass, and the edge where your lawn meets the woods — exactly where dogs roam. Keeping grass short, creating a barrier between lawn and woods, and a seasonal yard treatment focused on those zones meaningfully reduces tick pressure at home.
Removing it properly
Use fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin as you can, and pull straight up with steady, even pressure. Do not twist or jerk, which can leave mouthparts behind. Then clean the bite area and your hands.
Ignore the folk remedies. Burning the tick with a match, smothering it in petroleum jelly, or painting it with nail polish are all counterproductive — they delay removal and may increase what the tick regurgitates into the bite. Prompt mechanical removal is the whole objective.
What to save and who to call
Consider keeping the tick in a sealed bag or container with the date and where it was found. Identification matters — only the blacklegged tick transmits Lyme, and the American dog tick and lone star tick do not — and a vet or clinician may find it useful.
For a dog, contact your veterinarian for guidance, particularly about whether testing is warranted and about preventives going forward. For a person, contact a clinician, especially if a rash or flu-like symptoms develop in the following weeks. We are not able to advise on either, and would rather say so than guess.
On the property side, the useful work is at the edges. Blacklegged ticks concentrate where mown lawn meets tall grass, brush, and leaf litter, not in the middle of open turf. Maintaining that boundary and treating harborage reduces exposure around the house measurably, without pretending a wooded Finger Lakes property can be made tick-free.
Common questions
What is the correct way to remove a tick?
Fine-tipped tweezers, grasp as close to the skin as possible, pull straight up with steady pressure — no twisting. Then clean the area. Avoid matches, petroleum jelly, and nail polish; they delay removal, which is the opposite of what helps.
Should I keep the tick?
It is often worth it. Put it in a sealed bag with the date and where it was found. Only the blacklegged tick transmits Lyme, so identification genuinely changes the picture, and a vet or clinician may want to see it.
This is what we do