Gruesome grooming

A tick! Another whopping great engorged tick. When will Artur cease to be a parasite hosting convention and go back to being an engaging pet?

I’ve taken three of them off this week; and this morning’s one was right under his chin. Gruesome.

And I think there is another small one there. But of course he won’t let me get anywhere near him after removing that last one.  So I’m lulling him into a relaxed and floppy mode so I can creep up on him (with my pair of tweezers at the ready).

They aren’t deeply embedded ticks, and in fact they only seem to be one day parasites, because I would have spotted the tick under his chin yesterday as he is getting lots of grooming which he thinks is affection, but I’m hyper alert.

They seem to latch on, feed and then drop off in 24 hours. I have found a few in the teensy small as an ant stage on his fur before they latch on. And he doesn’t seem to be behaving very differently playing host. I think he slept 15 hours today.