There is no doubt that the presence of ticks can pose a challenge to your health and happiness. Tiny, silent and slow, ticks are excellent at going unnoticed. Preferring to live in tall grass and wooded areas, once they latch onto a host they’ll go wherever their victim takes them. The various tick species often have a favorite animal to prey on, but most of them are pretty flexible. For example, the “American dog tick,” the most common tick in Southeastern Pennsylvania, does indeed love feeding on dogs, but they’re regularly found on wildlife, livestock and humans as well. A professionally-applied tick control spray can help provide protection against these unwanted visitors.

The different tick species vary in appearance, but they can usually be recognized by their small size, their eight legs and their relative lack of mobility—a tick will latch onto its host for days or even weeks, gorging itself on blood until it has ballooned to several times its original size.

The tick’s vampire-like behavior is unsettling, but disease is the real danger from ticks. Because they travel from host to host and even species to species, they are perfectly designed to spread infections. The most well-known tick-related illness is Lyme disease, but there also are many others, such as Babesiosis and Ehrlichiosis and Anaplasmosis which cause a host of nasty symptoms ranging in severity.