Any dog owner would know the scourge that are fleas and ticks, as the latter happens to be a disease carrying, blood sucking creature that is a pain to get rid off. Thankfully, prevention be better than cure in this case, there are effective methods to ensure that your dog remains tick-free for the rest of its life with careful care and attention. Engineers over at the Virginia Military Institute have something else in the battle against ticks – by rolling out what they call the “tick rover,” which is a robot that claims to have succeeded overwhelmingly when it comes to lowering tick populations in tests.
Dr. James Squire, project lead and professor of electrical engineering at VMI, was inspired to come up with this robot after he discovered ticks on his toddler son many moons ago., Squire said, “We did it [a test] in an area that was so overrun with lone star ticks that the local school board forbade the school from taking school trips there because the students were picking up so many ticks. In every case there is 75 percent, 90 percent, 100 percent removal,” he added. This is one pesticide-free method of getting rid of ticks, and hopefully an affordable model for the masses will be released soon.