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Ticks.

4K views 27 replies 16 participants last post by  G-bear 
#1 ·
Pulled 5 ticks off Bourne last night and we weren't even in the woods. Just went out for his final walk of the night. He was done after 20 minutes. So I came home and took off his collar and brushed him down good and then just started picking them off one by one. Thank goodness I have him on Bravecto. Must have been when he went over to play with the sheep.
 
#2 ·
You're lucky. Ticks seem to dislike my dog - and they end up on me! I've pulled more ticks off me this year than Bagheera.

The worst was about 30 years ago during my graduate work. Had Lupo with me then, and had to collect data from farm fields and woods at night. One night we got back and I must've pulled a hundred ticks off Lupo. Fortunately we only had to do it a short time, but man... ticks suck.
 
#4 ·
I'm not sure if it is all of the rain we have had this spring, the cool temperatures or what but I have never seen ticks as bad as they are this year! Was out taking photos over the weekend and stopped along a field to take a photo. Mind you, I stood ON the gravel road when I took the photos...not a blade of grass near me. I was out of the car for less than 5 minutes. I got back in the car and found 4 wood ticks crawling on me. As someone who has experienced Lyme disease I can tell you that this sort of ruined my photo taking afternoon. I hate those things with an absolute passion:(
 
#5 ·
I'm not sure if it is all of the rain we have had this spring, the cool temperatures or what but I have never seen ticks as bad as they are this year! Was out taking photos over the weekend and stopped along a field to take a photo. Mind you, I stood ON the gravel road when I took the photos...not a blade of grass near me. I was out of the car for less than 5 minutes. I got back in the car and found 4 wood ticks crawling on me. As someone who has experienced Lyme disease I can tell you that this sort of ruined my photo taking afternoon. I hate those things with an absolute passion
I had one bite me Saturday it was a big dog tick. I kept it called my pup and she said watch the area gave me the symptoms to look out for but said the really small ones have lyme. Either at I always check him and my boyfriend double checks him in case I miss something. They are terrible this year.
 
#6 ·
I live in Oregon and haven't found any yet this year (fingers crossed), but when I visited family in southern Washington a couple weeks ago I was picking them off my dog every time she went outside. I just kept a tub of soapy water outside so I could drown them and had to comb her with a flea comb before she came inside. Ticks are horrible. :(
 
#9 ·
So far I haven't found a tick on my boy or ourselves. All kinds of warnings about this season being a very very bad tick season both online and on the news-local and network.

My boy was tested for Lyme disease earlier in the season and fortunately he was negative.

Here are symptoms of Lyme Disease-

Typical symptoms of Lyme disease in dogs include:

Fever
Loss of appetite
Reduced energy
Lameness (can be shifting, intermittent, and recurring)
Generalized stiffness, discomfort, or pain
Swelling of joints
Symptoms can progress to kidney failure, which can be fatal. Serious cardiac and neurological effects can also occur.


The full article is here-

?Lyme Disease in Dogs: Symptoms, Testing, Treatment, and Prevention - American Kennel Club

Good info for prevention, there's also a Lyme vaccine. If you live in an area where there are a lot of reported cases of Lyme disease, you may want to consider the vaccine. You can discuss it with your Vet.
 
#10 ·
Just saw a dog yesterday that was on Day 2 of 28 of antibiotics for Lyme disease. Family were in Vermont the previous weekend. One tick went unnoticed and embedded itself on the back of the ear. Poor dog looked lost at the park, and she is normally running around.

The local news in MA did a story on the surge in ticks this year. It is pretty horrible. We were in the Berkshires in Western MA a month back and after every single walk we were examining Maya for ticks, and boy we found plenty.

I think Lyme vaccination should be mandatory if you live around here.
 
#12 ·
The problem with the Lyme vaccine is that it is not 100% effective. Many years ago, when the vaccine was still available for humans, I got Lyme disease. As a result of that really awful experience I had my daughter vaccinated for Lyme as we spend a great deal of time outdoors and MN is an area of high incidence of Lyme Disease. My daughter got Lyme disease that summer. Bulls Eye rash and everything. She was on antibiotics for 30 days. Shortly after this the vaccine was removed from the market for humans but remained available to animals.
I still vaccinate all of my dogs for Lyme. I use Nexgard, I bathe them regularly with JP tea tree shampoo (to repel ticks) and I check them nightly. I do all of this because NOTHING is 100% effective and, having had Lyme myself and still having the effects of that, I am not willing to take any chances with my dogs.
Please use whatever preventative measures you can, especially this year when ticks are so bad, but do not count on them to be 100% effective. Check your dogs daily and if you see ANY of the symptoms posted by Carolina Mom get your dog to a vet. Take it from one who knows, this disease is nothing to mess around with.
 
#11 ·
I read an article last week that we're expected to have an awful summer for fleas and ticks. The news article I read focused on research in New England, where specialists had observed a record-breaking number of ticks carrying Lyme disease by March of this year! My family also uses Bravecto per our vet's recommendation, and it's the only thing that keeps them off our Border Collie and Scottie dog.
 
#15 ·
In 30 some odd years of having dogs, I have never encountered a tick on any of them...until this year. We have 3 dogs and have picked ticks off of each one of them.
The guys have had the Lyme vaccine because we fo to the dog park now, but have since learned that it is not that effective. Nasty things!
 
#16 ·
In the ten years we had Jake and the two years of Chloe we maybe found 2 ticks on them. This year has been horrible. We found so many on Chloe. One got her so bad she had the ring around the bite. So we started nexguard. It seems to be working since a couple we found have fallen off and were dead. The warm winter and the rainy spring have made it so bad. We have found so many attached in a few months we will probably test her for tick diseases. Not sure if we did it now it would show up. Does anyone know about that?

We bought the john Paul shampoo but just do not need to bath her that often. So it really didn't work. The spray was a pain because you have to remember to spray it on them all the time. My dad is using the spray for when he mows the grass.
 
#17 ·
I'm not quite sure what you mean about a ring around a tick bite. Lyme disease (deer ticks) will sometimes cause a bulls eye rash after a bite. It doesn't always appear but is a good indication that the deer tick transmitted Lyme disease. You may want to ask your vet about having Chloe tested for Lyme. Especially is you are in an area where there is a high incidence of Lyme.
 
#18 ·
You are all making me feel horrible. I pulled an engorged tick off of Zoe the day after I brought her home and I plopped it into an ashtray to kill it only to discover there were actually 5 "baby" ticks plus the engorged one. They had pulled many out of the poor girls ears at the E-vets on Saturday. I'm praying for no complications but we won't be able to get into my vet until Saturday. So far she's starting to show a normal appetite and energy.
 
#22 ·
Oh my gosh, I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad!! I only mentioned the rash because a bulls eye rash is a classic symptom of Lyme disease. It don't always appear. I have had Lyme disease and did not get the rash. Years ago, when the vaccine was still available for humans, I had my daughter vaccinated. She was bite by a deer tick months later and she did develop the classic bulls eye rash around the site. She was treated for Lyme with a 30 day course of antibiotics and was fine.
The thing about those darn deer ticks is that they are so tiny that they are often hard to find. Especially on a furry dog such as a golden. Kellyguy, you just got Zoe and had absolutely no control over her previous living conditions so those ticks surely are not your fault! You found them, you removed them and you are taking great care of Zoe now. She is very blessed to have you.
Previously Carolina mom posted symptoms of tick born illness on this thread. Watch for any of the symptoms listed and act accordingly. Talk to your vet about prevention. Remain vigilant. The ticks this year are awful everywhere it seems. We can't put our dogs or ourselves in a bubble to remain tick free. All we can do is try to take precautions and check our dogs (and ourselves) regularly.
You can have a dog checked for Lyme disease. I am not sure how much it costs nor do I know how accurate the test is. I have not experienced it in my dogs, only myself and my daughter. I do know that my doctor told me at that time that there were many "false positive" test results but, due to the seriousness of the disease, antibiotics were prescribed as my doctor did not find it wise to leave a positive test untreated, even if it might be a false positive.
 
#20 ·
The bite itself will usually leave a mark when the tick is removed , it is reaction to the ticks saliva. The bullseye is different from the bite reaction . They are horrible this year the worse I have experienced in a long time for early spring .We live in the Lyme area and work outside so we are vigilant but they still wreck havoc. Luckily Dusty is now cooperative with his checks after we come in .
 
#21 ·
Haven't found any ticks on Amber -- she is on Nex-gard. But I found one on me after our walk along the river [western Kansas]. It was still crawling, so I hadn't been bit yet. Maybe I should be taking Nex-gard, too. On vacation in the Ozarks a few years back, I found one engorged on my shoulder. Hadn't felt a thing. Someone told my wife to hold a lighted cigarette next to it and it would disengage. It didn't, but I have a cigarette burn scar. She finally just pulled it out.
 
#24 ·
Can I ask how you guys check for ticks?? Truman is on nexgard and I check him all the time but always feel like I could easily be missing something with all that thick hair!! I don't know what the most effective way to check is besides spreading his hair and back brushing all over slowly!
 
#26 ·
I am always looking for any little dark specks on the coat. Deer ticks are quite small and dark. If they're still on the surface of the coat you can see them on Goldens with their lighter coats. Any little dark speck I check closely and remove. Usually it's just dirt but occasionally it's a tick. I frequently run my hands all over the dog, getting my finger tips right down to the skin. An attached, engorged tick, whether the larger dog ticks or the smaller deer ticks will feel like a bump on the dogs skin. If you feel a bump, spread the hair and look to see what's there. If it's a tick, I apply alcohol with a cotton ball if there's alcohol at hand, then I use tweezers getting as close to the skin as possible and pulling straight back. I've found that the most common places for attached ticks are on the back of the head, behind the ears, and the upper back. You probably also want to roll the dog over on it's back and check the armpits, chest, stomach and inside the back legs. Recently I've noticed unattached ticks on the top of the feet.
 
#25 ·
I just missed a tick on Cooper. The groomer found it. She thinks it was already dead ( from the Frontline?) but still attached. Who knows how long it was there. I check him every day but with his heavy cost missed this one. All I can do now is hope the Frontline killed it before it passed any diseases. We do the best we can. But I am still beating myself over it.
 
#28 ·
I was not aware that dogs were treated for Lyme if the test came back negative and they had no symptoms. In the case of humans my doctor told me that often a test will be a "false positive" and that, in the case of humans, many physicians will still treat with antibiotics as the potential for harm if not treated outweighs the risk of a course of antibiotics. It was not a concern in my case or my daughter's as we both had symptoms in addition to a positive test result. In fact my daugjter, who was 2 or 3 years old at the time had the classic bulls eye rash where she had been bitten. To be perfectly honest I am not sure how a "false positive" test is determined as I have not experienced it.
I am not familiar with the idea of treating Lyme in dogs if the test results are negative and there are no symptoms. How would one determine that the dog had Lyme disease to begin with if it had no symptoms and no positive test results?
 
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