We have three dogs: a tan dachshund (Brody), a black lab (Sage), and a yellow lab/red heeler mix (Marley). 🐶🐶🐶 😊
We live in the Kansas City suburbs now, but occasionally we take them with us to the Ozarks when we visit family and friends. These pups are our fur babies and often sleep in bed with us. Well, Marley likes to sleep under the bed, Sage likes to find a spot at the foot of the bed where she can fit, and Brody likes to burrow (as dachshunds do) under the covers and curl right up next to my stomach. So, for their own health and ours it’s important to us that they stay tick-free.
A few years ago when I was visiting the Ozarks with these three I spent what seemed like hours picking ticks off of them after they’d been roaming free in the woods and brush near the house. We were getting ready to go to sleep, and there was NO WAY I was going to let any of them near the bed possibly covered in ticks. I found a over 20 ticks between the 3 of them. Don’t worry, most of them were still just crawling around and hadn’t bitten them yet. After what seemed like forever and all the ticks were off of them and dead, I crawled into bed and started researching all-natural tick repellents for dogs.
I found lemongrass mentioned somewhere in the recesses of the internet as a tick repellent. It has been so long, that I don’t remember where I found the information suggesting to try lemongrass oil.
The next day I went to the friendly, locally-owned health food store (the only one in the small town) and bought the brand of lemongrass oil they carry:
This is not an ad, but you can find it here to purchase online if you want.
I used olive oil as a carrier (because that is what I had on hand) and added several drops of lemongrass oil. I applied the mixture liberally to the tops of the each paw, behind each leg, to their bellies, the backs of their necks, and above the tail. They then roamed free in the woods, chased rabbits through the underbrush, and had a good ole’ time like they had the day before.
That night I again carefully inspected each dog and pulled off any ticks. The total that night: 4 ticks found. Impressive, right?!
I was so pleased to go from over 20 to 4! I’ve been using it ever since on the dogs, and on people too, with great success. I’m happy to share this information with you and hope that you will find it effective as well.
💮Thanks for reading and if you know of any other essential oils that are good tick-repellents, please let me know in the comments! I’ve heard geranium works well, but haven’t had the chance to test it yet.