Picture this: You are getting ready for a Saturday morning hike with your dog. You have given him his monthly tick chewable, checked that his flea and tick collar is still good, and maybe even rubbed a little topical treatment along his back. You grab the leash, lace up your sneakers, and head out the door.

In shorts.

No bug spray. No permethrin on your pants. No plan to check yourself for ticks when you get home.

Sound familiar? You are not alone. Millions of pet owners across the country do exactly this every single day. We fuss over our dogs and cats like they are made of glass when it comes to ticks, and then we walk right into the same tall grass and brushy trails without a second thought about our own skin. It is one of the strangest blind spots in outdoor health, and it is putting a lot of people at serious risk.

Your Dog Is Protected. You Are Not.

Here is something most pet owners do not realize: that tick pill you give your dog every month protects your dog. It does not protect you.

Ticks do not care that your dog is on Bravecto or NexGard. They will still crawl onto your dog’s fur during a walk through the woods. The medication may eventually kill the tick once it tries to bite, but before that happens, the tick has been hitchhiking on your dog the whole way home. And once you are back inside, that tick can drop off onto your couch, your carpet, your bed, or you.

Researchers who studied over 2,700 households found that families with pets were nearly twice as likely to find ticks crawling on themselves compared to families without pets [1]. When ticks were actually found on the pet, the risk to the humans in the house went even higher, with people being more than two and a half times more likely to have a tick attach to them [2]. The dog is not the problem. The dog is just the delivery vehicle.

So Why Do We Forget About Ourselves?

Think about the last time your vet reminded you to protect your pet from ticks. Now think about the last time your own doctor brought it up. There is a pretty good chance the vet wins that comparison by a landslide.

Veterinary medicine has made pet tick prevention almost effortless. You pick up a box of chewables once a month, toss one to your dog like a treat, and you are done. It is easy, it is routine, and your vet reminds you about it every year at the annual checkup.

Protecting yourself, on the other hand, takes real effort. You have to remember to spray DEET on your skin before you go out. You have to treat your clothes with permethrin and let them dry. You have to tuck your pants into your socks, which, let’s be honest, nobody wants to do on a warm summer day. And when you get home, you have to strip down and check every inch of your body, including behind your knees, in your belly button, and through your hair.

It is a lot. And most of us just do not do it.

A national survey found that more than half of Americans, 51%, do not take any personal steps to prevent tick bites during warm weather months [3]. Even people who live in areas where Lyme disease is extremely common, only about 40% say they consistently use repellent or check themselves for ticks after being outside [4]. After spending time in their own backyard, that number drops to just 23% [4].

We are protecting our pets far better than we are protecting ourselves, and the gap is enormous.

What Happens When You Miss a Tick

Ticks are sneaky. They inject a tiny amount of numbing saliva when they bite, so you usually cannot feel them at all [5]. They like to hide in warm, tucked-away spots: the hairline, behind the ears, the groin, under the arms, behind the knees. A tick the size of a poppy seed can go completely unnoticed for days.

That matters a lot, because the longer a tick stays attached, the greater the risk of disease transmission. Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness in the United States, with nearly 476,000 people diagnosed and treated for it every year [6]. Caught early, it is very treatable with antibiotics. But if it goes unnoticed, the bacteria can spread through your body and cause problems that are much harder to fix.

Late-stage Lyme disease can cause severe joint pain and swelling, heart rhythm problems, facial drooping on one or both sides, and inflammation of the brain and spinal cord [7]. Some people experience lingering fatigue, brain fog, and pain for months or even years after treatment, a condition sometimes called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome [8]. It is not something you want to gamble with.

And Lyme is not the only thing ticks carry. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, and even a rare condition called alpha-gal syndrome, which causes an allergy to red meat, are all tick-borne illnesses found in the United States [5].

Your Dog Might Actually Be Warning You

Here is a fascinating twist: if your dog tests positive for Lyme disease on their annual screening, that is not just a health update about your pet. It is a warning about your entire household.

Dogs are what scientists call “sentinel animals.” Because they spend so much time outside, low to the ground, sniffing through exactly the kind of habitat where ticks live, they tend to get exposed before humans do. A study confirmed that the rate of Lyme disease in dogs in a given area closely mirrors the rate of Lyme disease in the humans living in that same area [9]. When your vet tells you your dog tested positive for tick exposure, the smart response is not just to update your dog’s prevention plan. It is to call your own doctor and have a conversation too.

What You Can Do Right Now

The good news is that protecting yourself does not have to be complicated. It just has to become a habit, the same way giving your dog his monthly tick chewable has become a habit.

What to Do	For Your Pet	For Yourself
Before going outside	Make sure tick prevention is current (collar, chewable, or topical).	Apply an EPA-registered repellent with DEET or picaridin to exposed skin. Treat your clothing and boots with permethrin.
While outside	Keep pets on trails when possible; avoid letting them wade through tall grass.	Stay on trails, wear long pants, and tuck them into your socks in high-risk areas.
When you get home	Check your pet’s fur thoroughly, especially around the ears, collar, armpits, and between the toes.	Shower within two hours. Do a full-body tick check using a mirror. Toss your clothes in the dryer on high heat for 10 minutes.
If you find a tick	Remove it with tweezers, grasping as close to the skin as possible, and monitor for symptoms.	Remove it with tweezers, grasping as close to the skin as possible. Note the date and watch for a rash or fever in the following weeks.

Table 1: Side-by-side tick prevention habits for pets and their owners [10] [11]

The single most important thing you can do is check yourself for ticks every time you come in from outside. It takes about two minutes. It is free. And it can catch a problem before it becomes a serious one.

The Bottom Line

We love our pets, and that love shows in how carefully we protect them from ticks. But that same love and common sense needs to extend to ourselves. Your dog’s tick collar is not protecting you. Your cat’s topical treatment is not protecting you. The only thing that protects you is making your own prevention a priority.

The next time you reach for your dog’s monthly chewable, take a second to ask yourself: what am I doing for me? Because you deserve the same level of care you give your four-legged best friend.

References

[1] Jones EH, Hinckley AF, Hook SA, et al. Pet ownership increases human risk of encountering ticks. Zoonoses Public Health. 2018. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7053298/ [2] Cameron D. Can You Get Ticks From Pets? What Dog and Cat Owners Should Know. https://danielcameronmd.com/risk-tick-bite-pet-owners-2/ [3] Hook SA, et al. U.S. public’s experience with ticks and tick-borne diseases. Ticks Tick Borne Dis. 2015. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7053299/ [4] Gould LH, et al. Risk factors for Lyme disease in the general population: a survey of adults and caregivers in 28 states. Open Forum Infectious Diseases. 2025. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251026/Most-Americans-risk-Lyme-disease-in-their-own-backyards-by-skipping-simple-tick-prevention.aspx [5] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About Ticks and Tickborne Disease. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/index.html [6] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lyme Disease Surveillance and Data. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/data-research/facts-stats/index.html [7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Signs and Symptoms of Untreated Lyme Disease. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/signs-symptoms/index.html [8] Johns Hopkins Medicine. Study Shows Evidence of Severe and Lingering Symptoms in Some after Treatment for Lyme Disease. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2018/02/study-shows-evidence-of-severe-and-lingering-symptoms-in-some-after-treatment-for-lyme-disease [9] Sixteen Mile Veterinary Clinic. Are dogs early warning signs for human Lyme disease? https://www.sixteenmilevet.com/blog/answering-your-questions/are-dogs-early-warning-signs-for-human-lyme-disease [10] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing Tick Bites. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/prevention/index.html [11] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What to Do After a Tick Bite. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/after-a-tick-bite/index.html

Important Health Notice

Educational information only. Trail Ready Solutions does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, prescription guidance, or emergency services. Information on this page is not a substitute for evaluation by a qualified healthcare professional.

Tick identification, disease-risk information, symptom information, and suggested next steps may be incomplete or unsuitable for an individual situation. Do not delay seeking professional medical care because of information on this website.

If you have concerning symptoms after a tick bite, seek medical care promptly. For a medical emergency, call 911. Read the full Medical & Educational Disclaimer.