How To Avoid Tick Bites And Tick Diseases

Ask any outside-dog owner and they will likely tell you it’s been a horrible year for ticks. But that's the new normal; ticks by the millions are in places where ticks were once rare.

Here in the northeast, and pretty much across the country, you encounter ticks in two basic styles -- both of them bad. Big brown dog ticks are nasty critters. If they latch onto you, the bite site can get infected easily. And they can carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis and several other nasty ailments. But, at least dog ticks are big enough for you to see them easily.

Ixodes deer ticks, also called black-legged ticks, are even worse. So tiny in their nymphal...