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Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - Patrice help! Ticks are here with a vengeance!
| Patrice, I know you posted some good things here about ticks and another site. When our first rains come the ticks do too. We live in the country and had the dogs out yesterday, my lab I got 12 off! Wylie only 1. They were not embedded just marching up to the head. FOr some reason my lab Jake is a magnet for ticks and mosquitos. Luckily for Wylie the ticks dont like her very much. BUT I did find an embedded one in her last night I missed. She had a relapse on the first and we what thought it was heartworm, they did run a heartworm test which I think includes the standard tick panel, everything was negative. I use preventic collars but am afraid to use one on Wylie because if her relapse was truely the heartworm meds. I thought I read dogs being put on low levels doxy during the season, is this the case? I am freaking out over this. I want to get some feedback so I can ask my what on what to do. Laurie |
| Laurie CA |
| Laurie, Good for you to be proactive in finding these ticks and removing them before they attach. Sometimes they are as small as the period on this sentence. This is the webpage that contains numerous links to information about ticks and tick disease. http://saluqi.home.netcom.com/ticklinks.htm At the top of this page it provides a link to sign up for the Tick-L discussion forum. This forum has many members (some of whom are experts) and includes a practicing vet who is an expert in tick diseases. I particularly like Gil Ash's website: http://blackgsd.googlepages.com/home CA can be a hotbed of tick disease, it depends on where you are located. Here is an interactive map that will give you an idea of how "hot" your county is. You can click on CA and then look county by county. Keep in mind these are only reported cases, so there are many more cases that go undetected and untreated. If you see a county that doesn't seem to have any cases, keep this in mind. If the next county over has a high number, then it's very likely your county is just under reporting. http://www.dogsandticks.com/US-map-lyme-disease-dogs/ Look, I've done plenty of research on tick prevention and asked plenty of questions on Tick-L. I've talked with Dr. Dodds about it too. My personal opinion is that prevention of tick diseases, if done responsibly, is safe. Assigning blame, from my viewpoint, to one particular product is shortsighted as long as I am working with my vet. I weighed all the risks and found that reducing the risk of a very serious tick disease in my dogs justifies using prevention. I don't just limit it to a topical treatment (Frontline), but I also keep the environment around the house tick free with applied nematodes. We are very cautious about travel into wooded grassy areas. These trips are followed up immediately with baths and coat exams. Chance has done very well with the topical Frontline. He received his heartworm tabs all summer too. This isn't a blanket recommendation that everyone run out and start using these prescription meds, but it is advice that discussing this with a vet is the appropriate start. One step is to have a Idexx Snap4 test run four times a year to try to keep ahead of any tick diseases. Unfortunately, it takes a period of time after exposure to a tick disease for the tests to indicate possible disease contraction. There has been plenty of discussion about prophylactic treatment with doxycycline but this really applies to the first 48 hours or so. Many times, it's hard to know how long a tick has been attached, or an attached tick may have been missed completely! Preventic collars have been shown to be the best tick preventative on the market. There are some cautions about the use of the these collars. In multiple dog households, there is a risk that during play another dog can mouth the collar. Many people don't use them because of this. These collars can weep in water, so if a dog drinks from a stream, they can ingest some of the preventative. This is also toxic to fish. That's why we can use them here because we have a pond with fish. Where you are located sounds like many of the places we have discussed on Tick-L. In some locations there are so many ticks that people will find them crawling up their legs when they step outside. One woman needed help because they were crawling all over the walls and inside of her house. She was afraid to sleep in her bed. Some of these people contract pest control to spray the property. It's a very tricky situation. There is danger with repeated exposure to high levels of pesticides, not only to dogs but to humans as well. But tick diseases, left untreated, are life altering. I have two friends whose lives are forever changed and they live in pain everyday. So, in a nutshell, I would say begin restricting access to outside. Monitor daily for ticks in the coat. Talk with your vet. Do a lot of research reading the websites that are available from the Tick-L list. patrice |
| Patrice NYS |
This thread was discussed on 24/11/2008
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