Ticked-Off

If you go down to the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise ...

At about eleven o'clock last night, after getting home from searching the site of a former lunatic asylum, a flagpole, a bunch of big blue recycling bins, and a deserted parking lot, armed only with a flashlight (guess who lost her Palm, only to find it in the car?), Hubby, Piper and I hopped into bed for some much needed rest.

As he was doing his nightly "that's a nice puppy dog" patting ritual, Hubby found something on the back of Piper's neck. Something that looked remarkably like a cylindrical green booger and/or this lovely picture. Yes, ladies and gentlemen -- our first tick.

I removed it with a pair of tweezers and we popped it into a test tube with rubbing alcohol (Hubby's a mad scientist, remember). For my first time, I did well, getting it out with the head and mouth still attached.

Naturally, however, since our former vet told us we didn't need to vaccinate Piper against Lyme disease, we are a little worried. (Add this to the list of reasons why we have a new vet. She was nice, but sometimes ...) And since I couldn't sleep last night (partly from worry, but mostly because I was convinced I was crawling with ticks), I spent some time doing tick research.

The good news is that, based on size and colouring, I'm pretty sure it's a dog tick (aka wood tick), instead of the Lyme Disease-carrying black-legged tick (aka deer tick). And I read somewhere that only 1% of the deer tick population in this area carries the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. And I read somewhere else that it's usually the nymph stage of the tick's life cycle that causes infection, and this is definitely an adult (eight legs instead of six).

Having said all that, though, this is my baby, and so we're heading to the vet, tick-in-a-test-tube in hand, to get an expert opinion. (Where's Gil Grissom when you need him?)