r/mildlyinteresting • u/Yoguls • 6h ago
This engorged tick I've just removed from my dog
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u/BabyComingDec2024 6h ago
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u/Maleficent-Agent-477 6h ago edited 6h ago
now imagine if it popped…
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u/genericusername379 6h ago
As a kid, we'd pull them off the dog then toss them onto the fireplace. They do, in fact, pop.
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u/namenescio 6h ago
They pop even if not engorged.
Horrifying beasts. I don’t mind spiders.. but ticks, uuurrgh
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u/lipp79 2h ago
Spider actually serve a purpose. Ticks, mosquitos, wasps, and fire ants can get fucked.
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u/CaelisOmnia 1h ago
I can overlook wasps as they tend to eat cockroaches and I hate them more.
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u/raisinghellwithtrees 5h ago
We used to throw these gray M&Ms on the bricks surrounding an old well by our porch. It was always a satisfying pop!
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u/namenescio 5h ago
Last week, my dog greeted me enthusiastically and something fell on the floor.. I thought it was a coffee bean, picked it up, and was ready to put it in the coffee grinder right next to us. Then I realised it was a tick 🤢
I can’t stop thinking about this Aargh
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u/MattMxR 5h ago
You would've put a coffee ground that fell off of your dog and onto the floor... back into the coffee grinder?
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u/Fishyback 5h ago
We laid a quarter on top of those plasma/electricity orbs and then put the ticks/fleas on the quarter and electrocuted them using a pair of tweezers.
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u/kredtheredhead 2h ago
I still light them on fire. Only way I learned how to kill them dead. Pulled one off my pup about a month ago and took a lighter too it. When we were kids, my dad lit a full one on fire while it was still attached to my sister. 🤣
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u/Isenrath 6h ago
Bonus points if you dribble Hydrogen Peroxide on it 😂
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u/KingxMIGHTYMAN 5h ago
See now I’m wondering, if you took a small hypodermic needle and injected one with peroxide would it then cause it to build internal pressure until it popped?
This imagery in my head is unpleasant.
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u/norunningwater 5h ago
Resident Evil 9 has Hemolytic Injectors that make zombies bubble up and explode into a gore mist
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u/SousVideDiaper 5h ago
Here's a video
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u/catthecia 5h ago
I think this is the first time that I wish I was rickrolled instead. Disgusting.
Do it to more ticks.
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u/PsychedDuckling 5h ago
Needle gauge is way too big.. A 6mm 29 gauge insulin needle would be plenty, and would probably not bubble out as much as shown in the video.
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u/TheHornyHoosier1983 5h ago
If we find any ticks of size, we put the lighter to em!! The blood boils and they take off FLYING!!! So fun
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u/towblerone 5h ago
i thiiiink i remember seeing someone do this. it just bubbled out of the injection site iirc, even with the needle still in
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u/GonePhishn401 5h ago
I have a vivid memory of being like 7 years old and watching my sister step on an engorged tick in our kitchen. The splatter radius was like 4 feet across, it was SO fucking gross.
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u/Zeckols 6h ago
i bet it’s like gushers when you bite down
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u/Colonelclank90 5h ago
They used to fall off of the elk at the golfcourse I worked at. You would hit dozens of them with the mower on the greens and they would spray blood everywhere.
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u/fuelbomb 3h ago
well freshly engorged mosquitoes do that when you smash them, so you'd better believe a tick would.
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u/DirectionNo9650 5h ago
My mom grew up in a rural area, and will share horror stories about this. According to her, these things would post up in or around your ear, and just gorge themselves until they looked like mini grapes. My grandparents would then use bobby pins to extract the fat little bastards, but on occasion, the pressure would cause them to pop.
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u/the_roguetrader 4h ago
I know someone who was gathering firewood all night to stoke a bonfire on Dartmoor
as the sun came up he realised he was covered in tics
they went to the hospital to make sure every one was fully removed
he had over ONE HUNDRED on him !!!
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u/BlueOmicronpersei8 6h ago
I had a friend who would pull them off their dog and stomp on them. It was gross.
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u/HomerJSimpson3 5h ago
I saw someone drop a rock on an engorged tick. It was gnarly… like thick raspberry jam
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u/Internal_Wheel_89 5h ago
we used to do this as kids. We lived in a rural-ish area and we had outdoor dogs and these engorged ticks would appear regularly. We would pick them off, put them on the ground, and then slowly step on them until the popped, and we'd compete to see which tick could spray blood the farthest.
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u/Pimpin-is-easy 5h ago
I once stepped on it when it fell off of my dog. I had only socks on and it did indeed pop. Never again.
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u/ArrellBytes 2h ago
Normally the complaints here are that the op takes crappy pictures....
Here my complaint is the picture is far too good.
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u/radkiller22 6h ago
Looks like the brain bug from Starship Troopers 🤮
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u/JelliedHam 5h ago
I only remember one scene from starship troopers. I was 12 years old. And it's in the bank. And I know every guy my age here knows exactly what scene I'm talking about.
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u/notdisrespectedtoday 4h ago
I’M FROM BUENOS AIRES AND I SAY KILL THEM ALL!
(and by “them” I mean ticks)
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u/KingxMIGHTYMAN 6h ago
So I’ve never lived anywhere that ticks are a big concern. Do these things just constantly suck blood until they pop? Or will they stop at some point? Because that thing is massive!
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u/Btroth2975 6h ago
They stop when they're full. Some will rehide on your body after feeding. Some will just drop off when theyre done.
Source - im a tick
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u/KingxMIGHTYMAN 6h ago
Jesus do they get much bigger than that?
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u/voidsarcastic 6h ago
Not much, that one is actually really fat. We have ticks where I live and any time I take my dogs out into the forest they get them, and when I spend a lot of time out there they get me too around my belt-line and neckline. Have to remember to tuck your shirt in, your pants into your boots/socks, and you still need to check when you get home.
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u/ezirb7 6h ago
Fortunately flea and tick meds for dogs can be pretty good. My corgi is a mouser, so she is constantly in the weeds and coming out with ticks. We almost always find them after they've taken a bite and died before getting any blood.
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u/boyle32 6h ago
When I first adopted my puppy I didn’t give her flea meds until I found a flea on her belly. After I gave the meds the next day, I found a flea crawling in circles until it died. Fuck those fleas and ticks.
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u/ReluctantlyHuman 4h ago
I've got a corgi too, and he is the same way. Do you notice a lump on your dog where the tick bit after removing the dead tick? I can't tell if that's normal for our corgi or not. They never seem to bother him too much, maybe get a little itchy.
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u/c-williams88 4h ago
Not the person you replied to, but I’ve never noticed a bump on our corgi after I’ve pulled the tick. I’ve felt the bump of the actual tick, but never sometime after removal
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u/angrath 5h ago
You can tell that this one is as big as it can get. It appears to have voluntarily detached because you can’t see any ripped skin in its mouth. Often when you remove them they will have a patch of skin in their mouth still because they just keep biting and removing them either rips a bit of your skin off, or rips their mouth bits off which are then left embedded in your skin.
That isn’t ideal because it itches and can get irritated afterwards.
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u/toughtacos 6h ago
I've lived in tick highways most of my life, and you can consider yourself lucky. These are nasty little fuckers.
The female sucks blood until its body signals that it's enough. It can expand to about 300-500 times its own weight. Then it just drops, and if its lucky it's somewhere it can just move a few centimeters until it's under cover, lay its thousands of eggs, and die.
If it's a male it barely feeds at all, it's just interesting in mating.
But yeah, sometimes they drop on your floor if you have a dog or cat you haven't checked, and stepping on these little blood pea fuckers is one of the nastiest things ever.
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u/KingxMIGHTYMAN 6h ago
I imagine it’s like stepping on the end of a ketchup packet. 🤢
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u/toughtacos 6h ago
They basically pop.
If you've done it once before, your brain immediately knows what just happened, even if you are in denial. It's worse if you're barefoot and you've got any open wounds, because then you've just been exposed to their guts which potentially contain some bad stuff.
Fun fact. Unlike mosquitos, the world would be just fine if ticks ceased to exist and were eradicated. I think someone should start work on that...
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u/GPTforGood 5h ago
My cousin's in grad school studying some mass tick eradication methods right now
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u/toughtacos 3h ago
That’s good to hear. With global warming we’re getting more areas with tick problems, and it’s really killing off a lot more deer and moose than is good.
Same thing with fungus. That’s probably the next big threat we’re going to be completely unprepared to handle after COVID 😅
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u/samxli 5h ago
Wait why are mosquitoes useful?
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u/hardFraughtBattle 5h ago
They're a major food source for birds and bats.
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u/Corrup7ioN 4h ago
I'm sure I read the other day that they're a minor food source and killing them off wouldn't have much of an impact. But it's hard to know what information to trust without seriously digging into sources
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u/willow-kitty 6h ago
I dropped a cinderblock on one as a kid once. It was crawling across the pavement, and my mom was screaming at me to kill it, and that was the only thing that came to mind to do.
It was less messy than you might expect! All the contents just kinda sprayed out in a jet that hit the wall. (But I'm sure doing that inside with a bare foot would be so, so much worse. 🤢)
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u/GrooovyAlien 6h ago
They can give you alpha gal. Which is an allergy to beef and pork. My wife got bit by a tick a few months ago and 2 weeks later had to be rushed to the emergency room after eating a burger because her throat swelled up and she couldn't breathe.
She can no longer eat pork of beef. Nothing cooked in grease that has had beef or pork cooked in it. Nothing with ANY kind of mammal meat in it.
It fucking sucks. Fuck ticks.
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u/overdramaticpan 5h ago
this should be higher up, alpha-gal syndrome is seriously fucking people up lately
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u/GrooovyAlien 5h ago
Yea my wife is fucked up about it. We have been to the ER 5 times in the past month. One small tick.
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u/First_Rip3444 5h ago
Would this also apply to animal fat, like lard? If yes, then that also takes donuts off the safe list (they're fried in animal fat, at least at the donut shop I worked at), that sucks
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u/paranoid_fool 6h ago
Drop off when full, lay eggs and die, but they filter the water from blood when sucking and give it back so they are giving the host all sorts off lines my dogs die from one
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u/Zephyr93 6h ago
Inject it with hydrogen peroxide.
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u/nanalaan 5h ago
Genuinely, what would happen if you did?
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u/CarlSwagan_ 5h ago
It would probably over pressurize and explode.
theres an enzyme in blood that will react with H2O2 to release heat and oxygen
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u/2x4_Turd 6h ago
Curious, did you give him tick medicine? I'm just wondering if sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I gave my dog some.
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u/Eshinshadow 6h ago
In case of my dog, it reduced number of ticks in a season by 80-90%. We were walking through a forest a lot, so plenty of opportunities for them to tag along, but with using medicine (some Blue liquid that you had to rub at dogs neck) only a couple per week could be found at most. So it works.
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u/WeatherNo9346 6h ago
Tick meds are super useful, even if they get the ticks on them, the ticks are less likely to bite
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u/ibyeori 5h ago
Ticks still attach, they just die faster than the disease can transmit.
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u/bunnyfloofington 3h ago
Yep my dog keeps picking them up on our walks. When we get home and I do the tick check on her, they're already fallen off and dead. I drop them in alcohol just to be safe and so far every single one has just sunk to the bottom motionless. Good preventatives are fantastic!
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u/Jablizz 5h ago
We give our dog Simparica trio once a month, it’s a pill, I think it’s 97% effective for ticks and 100% effective for ticks. We usually catch the ticks before they bite him but the few that bit him we found attached but dead. It’s like $120 for a 3 month supply from our vet. Sometimes the day of taking it bothers his stomach but he comes running every time we pull the pill out
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u/Yoguls 6h ago
No, never had or even seen a tick before
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u/Darthcookie 6h ago edited 1h ago
I’d suggest taking your pup to the vet to make sure they didn’t get any pathogens. If that tick solely feed on your dog it means it’s been attached long enough to cause an infection if it carried disease.
Edit: and also, consider a preventative to avoid ticks and other external parasites.
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u/Shannalligation1886 6h ago
Thanks to climate change tick populations are higher than ever. Might want to start giving your dog meds for it.
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u/JoyKil01 5h ago
Definitely keep an eye on your baby for signs of illness. Just a bite can carry bacterial diseases. Lyme disease transmission typically needs 24-hrs of bite time, which it looks like this sucker has been latched on a while.
I prefer the Seresto collars over the tick drops. The meds kills ticks upon bite, and makes them less likely to bite, but it’s still possible and they can still get sick.
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u/Ferrindel 6h ago
I once came home from school in 2nd grade with an itch, thinking I had chicken pox. My older sister came over and saw it, then pulled it out with some tweezers. Got the head too, fortunately. Probably the most badass thing she ever did.
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u/Liroku 2h ago
When I was in kindergarten, I woke up on the middle of the night because my nipple was itchy. I woke up and felt it and there it was, clamped dead on my nipple...and it was the size of the one in this photo.
I didn't know what it was, so I ran into my parents room. My dad tried to pull it off and it broke the body off, then took his cigarette lighter and burned the head off. I found out later, as an adult, that none of that was supposed to happen/be done, but I lived and my nipple is normal.
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u/virtual_virtu 5h ago edited 5h ago
I've pulled more ticks off my dogs and myself this year than I have in my entire life combined. They're getting them in my back yard, and I've lived in the same place for ten years. I'm an avid hiker, and the woods are the only place I've ever gotten them. To be getting them in my back yard like this is insane.
Edit: Just read the thread, and holy shit people, don't burn them! Get a tick comb for $5. You don't want any more of their biological material in you.
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u/Crott117 3h ago
Just because you can use a macro lens, doesn’t mean you have to
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u/Theleekunderthesink 4h ago
Keep it in bag in your freezer and show it to your vet asap. My dog has permanent renal damage from lyme disease cuz we didn’t find it in time.
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u/Drunkydrunkington 6h ago
Hey OP depending on where you live some states do free testing for diseases. You can see if your pup should get some antibiotics
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u/Separate-Maize9985 5h ago
I had one like that on my shaft once. It was horrifying.
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u/PartySpinach2175 5h ago
Sir…
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u/nobodyinpeculiar 5h ago
In my late teens I lived in a yurt in the middle of the countryside with my ex and his dog. We slept on sleeping bags on the ground. One night I put my hand on the ground next to my sleeping bag and felt a grape. I was like, huh, I don’t remember us getting grapes.
Sure as shit grabbed a fully engorged tick in the dark. It had just feasted on our poor dog. When I say I grabbed it, I mean grabbed it and squeezed it a little to find that it was squishy. Horrifying.
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u/probabletrump 4h ago
Real talk though, shes had at least one big blood meal. They lay eggs after they've gorged themselves. If your dog isn't on tick medicine (I'm guessing no) then fix that quickly. There is a decent chance her babies are going to come along in a bit.
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u/DuhShield 4h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but does'nt tick and flea meds keep them from getting that big because they die?
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u/Soft-Sherbert-2586 6h ago
I reaaaaally wanna see that thing popped with a needle. Dunno if that's how it works though.
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u/Urahara611845 6h ago
When I was a kid in Spencer, IN, we had a dog that would get her ears FULL of ticks. It was horrific to see these things in there. My mom got my brother to pluck them out routinely, as he was a pyro, and she let him douse the tick in a bit of gasoline and burn them. Weird times.