Hi! So I have just gotten a new puppy, and I found three ticks on him on the way home from getting him, and the vet told us to keep our other puppy away from him for a week, I'm assuming until the medication is in effect? Is this what you would do? My puppy without ticks, as far as I know, does not yet take medication for ticks.

My first thought was that maybe that one week period was in case the ticks laid eggs on the puppy, but since I didn't know the period of time for hatching, I had to look it up and it's like 31-57 days. So that's not it. I really am not sure why the vet recommended a week away from your other puppy, I'm hoping he/she checked your pup out very thoroughly for any more ticks and sent the pup home tick free, my previous Huskies I had came from North Carolina and each had one tick on them when the vet examined them, he also knew I had a senior Malamute at home but mentioned nothing about keeping them all seperated. If someone here can't give you the reason, I'd just call the vet up and ask the reasoning behind his/her recommendation. To me, it doesn't make a lot of sense so I'm curious to know the answer as well.

Glad I'm not the only one confused by this!
Because this is the first time this has happened to me, what do you do at home? Do you fumigate? I have two little kids, so I'm just trying to figure out what to do next...

If I tell her to keep the two puppies apart for a week then maybe I'll sound like I know what I'm talking about - - - yeh, I'll do that.

If the vet removed the ticks and checked to see if there were any others, I wouldn't do anything more.  Fleas can infest a house at the drop of the proverbial hat, I've never seen a house infested with ticks.  Terminix has a decent write up on where ticks live and why it's unlikely that you'll have a problem indoors.  Their desired site to lay eggs is in the ground, outside where natural warmth and moisture will help the hatch.

If you have any tall grass / shrubs around your house I'd think that if there were many ticks around they'd have 'hitched a ride' in already.  If you haven't found any on your kids before, the chances a good that you don't have many ticks around and you've taught your kids to naturally steer clear of the areas where they might hide.

... and I'm rambling ...

Unless your pup had some kind of internal parasite issue that you need to treat for, such as hookworms or giardia, then I don't see why you need to keep them apart for only a week, unless this pup is behind the other pup in shots for parvo and like and the vet thinks your other pup might drag something in for this pup if it's out and about already. I would call and ask for the reasoning, then let us know. Might be an interesting insight for us.

As long as the new pup is now clear of ticks and has been bathed thoroughly to get rid of anything lingering in the fur, along with a clean bill of health on the stuff like internal parasites then I would go ahead and let them do their thing together, but keep an eye on the new pup as lyme disease will start ramping up in some areas before long again. Time to get everyone on some kind of repellent. Ticks are already out in droves here.

What type of meds did the vet give the pup with the ticks? It is possible that if it was a topical to keep apart 48 hours, until the meds have entered the blood stream, believe it takes up to 48 hours for meds to kill any lingering ticks that the vet may not have seen. Also pups like to mouth right at the neck, so it may also have been a precaution so that the one pup didn't accidentally ingest any lingering topical meds on the other pup. One week however, does seem odd, 48-72 hours seemed more likely. Hmmmm like the others have said, call the vet so you can understand the reasoning behind the one week suggestion, and then let all of us know.

So yesterday the vet didn't remove any ticks, but this morning when we went back she found two dead ones, I'm assuming from the Bravecto tablet (the meds) I gave him last night, they said it would work within two hours of him taking it. This afternoon we bathed him.

We did ask the reason this morning for why we should separate them, and their reason is that because he has diarrhea they don't want the other pup to catch anything.

Thanks all for your comments, they really helped to put me at ease.

This is really the first time I've ever come into contact with ticks, but I'm sure it won't be my last, ha.

Thank you for updating us

I know one of your pups is new, but how old is your existing puppy?

Well, it's kind of embarrassing, but our first pup Logan is 8 weeks - we've had him for 3 weeks, and our second Jasper is almost 10 weeks and we just got him on Monday.

Nah, no need to be embarassed, not every "adoption" is under the most ideal conditions. My only reason for asking the age was to see why the vet was being *that* careful. Now I kinda understand it.

Yeah I probably should have led with that!