So when we found a tick on our family dog in the middle of the night, off we went to the emergency vet clinic. You know the ones, that charge you $100 just for being open in the middle of the night? I'd love to see a recording when the vetrinarian had to re-explain ticks to my petrified family. We thought Sydney was a goner! We asked him if we'd made it in time. In retrospect, that tick likely could have eaten most of that dogs brain and we wouldn't have noticed, bless his wee heart.
Anyways, I'm sure he paid an arm and a leg at the vet to have the tick removed, dad's tick story was finally corrected before he passed it onto us. Years later my dad took me on a date with him and this lady he's been seeing from online dating, and before we left she had to help me remove a tick out of dad's back.
Turns out you don't want to pull on them because they'll leave their heads behind and get infected, but if you heat up a spoon and touch it to their butt, they back that ass up.