Ticks are horrible blood sucking creatures that can carry and transfer diseases from your pets to you!

There are many myths about how to remove a tick from a dog, some of which work, but if the process is done wrong the tick will not die and may return or the head can be left in the dog and become infected or move into the blood stream.

So, here's some sure fire ways to get the tick out of your dog...

Good Ole' Vaseline

Ticks breathe through their butts, so if you rub vaseline onto the tick and leave it for a half hour or so it will suffocate and die. Make sure to put a nice little bit of vaseline over the tick. Once the tick has died you can remove it by simply pulling it out with tweezers. Make sure you get the entire tick including the head!

Get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and pour some into the bottle cap. Now place the bottle cap over the tick(up-side-down) so that the tick drowns in the alcohol. Next, like the vaseline, pull the tick out with tweezers gently making sure that the head comes out with the body.

The tick should pull out easily, if you are having difficulty removing the tick then you may need to submerse it in the alcohol for a little longer.

Here is a classic one that I have done many times myself.

Take some tweezers, that you don't mind burning, and a lighter. Light the lighter and place the end of the tweezers into the flame for about 20 to 30 seconds or until hot. 

Now, being careful not to burn you or your dog, grab the tick as close to the head as you can. Let the hot tweezers burn the tick for a few seconds and then try to pull it out. Once again, if the tick does not pull out easily then you may need to re-heat the tweezers to get them hotter or burn the tick longer.

Now that you have used one of the above methods to remove the tick you need to make sure that it is dead. You don't want you or your dog to pick it back up in the yard or off the floor.

One way that I have gotten rid of ticks before is to flush them down the toilet. There's no way a tick can come back up the toilet!

Another, possibly more effective way is to burn the tick to death. Either hold the tick with tweezers or place on a fire proof counter and, using a lighter, burn the tick for about 20 seconds. You will know when it's dead. Then dispose of it in the toilet or trash.