I have tried various types of tick remover , but find they are only successful once the ticks have grown sizeably, some go red ,others blue and there are tiny black ones (different species) the heads do get buried into the skin and often break off and remain there especially if pulling with tweezers as the actual body and head of the tick is so tiny it is difficult to get anything finite enough to grip this strongly.
I think the ticks tend to occurr where sheep and deer roam, and the ticks will wait on the grass till they are brushed off, they can survive quite a while without food which is why they are so successful.
All our Cockers have suffered may ticks over the years and (touch wood) up to now we have managed to avoid any health problems.
Sadly there is no out of season for them, I have picked ticks off our dogs on Xmas day before now...guess it is just something we have to live with, noticeably when I lived in Lancashire we have very few problems , but now in Scotland they are pretty rife........