Brown Dog Tick

Brown Dog Tick Behavior

Ticks usually ride into a home on a dog, and now and then on a person. Most ticks live in woods and tall grass, but the brown dog tick has adapted to life alongside dogs. It settles around dog beds, crates, kennels and baseboards, and outdoors it stays close to the house, near porches and doghouses. To lower the odds of an infestation, cut shrubs back from the walls and keep your dog checked and protected on a regular schedule. If ticks keep appearing, call a pest control professional, since an established population is hard to clear alone.

Brown Dog Tick Facts

• Found worldwide, especially in warm climates, and among the most widespread ticks on earth
• Prefers dogs as hosts at every life stage
• Can carry canine ehrlichiosis and babesiosis, and in some regions Rocky Mountain spotted fever; it is not a Lyme disease carrier

How to Recognize a Brown Dog Tick

Unfed adults are about 1/8 inch long, flat, teardrop shaped and a plain reddish brown with no white or silvery markings on the back. That plain look is the easiest way to tell it from Florida’s other common ticks:

• American dog tick: brown with whitish, mottled markings on the shield behind the head.
• Lone star tick: the female has a single white spot on her back.
• Blacklegged (deer) tick: smaller, with dark legs and a dark shield, and the female has a reddish-orange body.

Fed females swell to roughly 1/2 inch and turn grayish blue. Larvae have six legs; nymphs and adults have eight.

Life cycle and hosts: This tick takes three blood meals, one each as a larva, a nymph and an adult, and drops off to molt between them. Dogs are the preferred host at every stage. A fed female lays a single large batch of eggs, often in the thousands, in a crack or crevice and then dies.

In Florida: It is one of the most widespread ticks in the world and is common throughout the state, especially in kennels and in homes with dogs. It does well in warm conditions and stays active all year here. Lyme disease is spread by blacklegged ticks, and the brown dog tick is not considered a Lyme carrier. See the bites and treatment page for the diseases it can carry.