'They were pretty much everywhere': This Cambridge couple pulled more than a dozen ticks off their dog

Hike up your socks and check your pets — tick season is already in full force.

Rob and Kathy Bull of Cambridge, Ont., are warning others to check themselves and their pets. They took to social media last Wednesday to post a video of nearly 20 ticks creeping around in a green vial. They had picked the ticks off their four-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Roxy after a short walk through Dumfries Conservation Area.

"Mostly her abdomen, but there were a few in her beard, a couple on the top of her head, behind her ears, shoulders. They were pretty much everywhere," Rob Bull said of where they found the ticks.

The trail Rob Bull took Roxy on is a clear-cut gravel trail spanning a total distance of approximately 1 km.

"She's a Jack Russell, so she's faced down sniffing everything, always. And of course she's not that tall, so you know, it's hard to keep her on the path," he said. "But she did not wander off into the deep, deep grass or anything like that."

Luckily for Roxy, the ticks were identified as being dog ticks, not their Lyme-disease-producing cousin, the black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick.

Rob Bull removed a good portion of them by hand, but had to use a tick removal tool to get the rest.

"They weren't attached, thankfully, because it just happened," Kathy Bull added.

"We got tick and flea medication for her, but I had laxed on giving it to her," she said. "And I've spoken to a lot of other people, they've also forgotten."

One of those people who sometimes forgets is Katie Clow. 

"You know, I'm a veterinarian and a tick expert, and I need reminders to make sure that my dog gets it," she said.

Clow is also an associate professor at the University of Guelph and a tick and tick-borne disease expert. 

The Bulls, along with many online, are under the impression that Waterloo region's warm winter has caused local tick populations to thrive, but that's not entirely true.

Clow said that ticks can survive mostly any winter by living under the brush layer. The increased population comes from a mixture of a couple things, including the fact that people are just more aware of them.