Ticked Off

My friend Jane says she found a tick on her ten-month-old dog, Sam, over the weekend. It was under his collar, a good place to hide.
Jane and Sam, along with me and my two dogs, went for a long walk into our back woods last week. Watching 9-year-old Stella doing her usual ignoring-my-owner-doing-my-own-thing with the two pups close at her heels, we were amused. It was like watching King Kong in charge of a primary class.
But now we have to worry about those three running through the woods. We have lots of deer behind our house, and so the black-legged tick (formerly known as the deer tick) will be in abundance now, thanks to our increasingly mild winters.
Only twice in the past five years have I found a tick on Stella. I don't usually check her; I find them by accident, easier on a short-haired dog. But now we'll have to have regular checks...of me, too. Boy, oh, boy, you don't want to be around the day my husband finds a tick on me. I don't mind bugs, as long as I can see them and they aren't on me.
It's one thing to pull a tick off Stella, but I certainly won't be so docile or quiet.