Tick Guides: Find, Identify, Remove and Respond

What Would You Like to Do?

Choose the main guide that matches what you need help with right now.

All Tick Guides by Topic

Our guides are organized around practical situations. The main guides provide a complete overview, while the detailed articles answer specific questions in greater depth.

Checking for ticks

Use these guides after hiking, gardening, outdoor play or any other activity where contact with ticks may have occurred.

Identifying a possible tick

A small dark spot or raised object is not automatically a tick. These guides help you examine common features and compare possible look-alikes.

Removing a tick

A clearly attached tick should be removed carefully and without unnecessary delay. These guides explain the correct technique and what to do afterward.

Monitoring a tick bite

Not every small local skin reaction is automatically a sign of illness. The size, development and accompanying symptoms are more important than a single appearance.

Ticks on Children

Children should be checked particularly carefully after outdoor activities. The scalp, hairline, areas behind the ears and other protected parts of the body can easily be overlooked.

The main guide explains the complete checking process. The detailed guide focuses on the places where ticks may be especially difficult to find.

Ticks on Dogs and Cats

Small ticks can be difficult to find beneath a dog’s or cat’s coat. The correct checking and prevention routine depends on the animal, coat type, lifestyle and local risk.

Choose the guide for your pet and keep handling calm, controlled and safe.

Ticks on dogs

Learn how to check a dog systematically, where ticks commonly hide, how to respond when one is found and which changes should be assessed by a veterinarian.

Ticks on cats

The cat guide explains how to inspect the coat with minimal stress, examine a suspicious spot and use only tick-prevention products that are suitable for cats.

Preventing Tick Bites Outdoors

Protective clothing, suitable repellents, careful route choices and a thorough check after returning indoors can help reduce the chance of an unnoticed tick bite.

Which Guide Matches Your Situation?

It is not always obvious which guide is the best place to begin. Use these common situations to find the most relevant next step.

You have just returned from hiking or an outdoor area

Check clothing, equipment, skin and hair as soon as practical.

You see a very small dark spot

Small ticks can resemble dirt, a scab, a seed or another minor skin feature.

You are unsure whether it is a tick or skin tag

Do not pull at an uncertain raised skin feature before examining it carefully.

You found a swollen or rounded tick

A feeding tick can become much larger and look very different from an unfed tick.

You found an attached tick

Go directly to the step-by-step removal instructions.

The tick has already been removed

Clean the area, record the date and continue to monitor the bite site.

A small dark fragment remains visible

Do not dig aggressively into the skin. First determine whether the visible point may be dried blood, a puncture mark or retained material.

The bite area is red

A small immediate reaction is not automatically an expanding tick-bite rash. Monitor its size, shape and development.

The skin change is visibly expanding

An expanding or unusual rash after a tick bite should be medically assessed.

You are checking a child

Use the guides written specifically for checking children.

You are checking a pet

Choose the appropriate guide for the animal.

All Detailed Tick Guides

These focused guides answer common questions that arise while checking, identifying, removing or monitoring a tick.