I found these bugs in the morning, my dogs bed is on our bed and he has a lot more in his bed than ours. He does not have any on his body so I decided to exclude fleas. They look like pieces of lint but they move slowly and can not really see the legs. What could these be?
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Ensure all the bedding gets washed in hot water and thoroughly dried on hot as well. The heat will kill everything. If you have carpet, ensure you vacuum often to collect any that have made it to the floor (sweep often if you have bare floors) and empty the bin every time or replace the bag often. The dog may need to see a to remove any embedded ticks and a bath (possibly more than one) to remove any loose insects. Also treat carpets with Diatomaceous earth, which is just a ground up rock, but has abrasive and physico-sorptive properties (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth)– DBADonCommented Sep 24, 2020 at 14:05
1 Answer
This is almost certainly a tick of some sort. Which tick it is, is hard to say without a close (macro) photo and knowing where in the world you are.
If you have found a number of them on bedding, it is highly likely that they have been on him for a while and finished their blood meal and are now looking for a place to either progress to a new stage in their life-cycle or to lay eggs.
Ticks are also really really good at hiding and often seek out crevices on the body (e.g. armpits, groin) and sometimes even inside noses or ears. These are pretty hard places to search and the early life-cycle stages of ticks are tiny and pale (<2 mm and skin coloured), so they can be really hard to detect.
You can get over-the-counter tick treatments from most veterinary stores.
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I don’t believe this is “almost certainly a tick”. It “could” be, but calling it that because you don’t know what else it could be, is NOT helpful. Most of us know what ticks look like. No legs are visible whatsoever in this photo (or mouthparts, though the photo is admittedly blurry). My dog is currently dealing with something that looks very similar, shiny and nearly round, but black. They have legs underneath them like beetles, bite, and occasionally jump a short distance when disturbed. Ticks don’t jump. Nothing in this photo shows scale, but the bugs on my dog are TINY… less than half t– FredCommented Oct 15, 2021 at 20:41