FYI, Fatal Tick Bite in Dogs

[forgeblast]

Here in the North East, I get my dog the lyme vaccination every year. If I miss her advantix by two days she has ticks on her. There is the tick key and that tick twister, the tick key could not get a tick off my back but the twister did.

 

[Gary Fowler]

We use the drops on our dog, but the best solution is to get yourself a herd of guinea fowl. They go all day with their head down in the grass and eat any tick they find. I haven't found a tick on our dog since getting the guinea fowl. I have 6 that roam all over the yard. Wife hates the sound they make but it doesn't bother me. They are also good watch dogs and alert to any disturbance.

 

[flusher]

Ticks are really dangerous. My sister was bitten by one while cleaning out a storage shed a few years ago. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease and Erichilosis. Took her almost a year to recover.

 

[flusher]

Ticks are really dangerous. My sister was bitten by one while cleaning out a storage shed a few years ago. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease and Erichilosis. Took her almost a year to recover.

Oops. Correct spelling is "Ehrlichiosis".

 

[charlz]

I was just thinking.. if the dog gets ticks what about Oscar and don't you have horses as well? If nothing else they could act as a tick breeding ground if not treated... do you treat or spray them for ticks?

 

[newbury]

It's getting to be that time of year again. I've been diagnosed with Lyme disease 3 times over the last 10 years. Tick bite, inflammation, doctor tests for it. I don't like ticks.

We have lots of ticks in the North-East.We use Advantix every month,Lyme disease shots.Permathrin(spelling) is good for spraying trucks,cars ect.I have got into the habit of spraying with Permathrin any deer ect.that we take.

Tick prevention starts in the bathroom, if you use toilet paper with tubes.
Practical Primitive | Skill of the Month: Tick Tubes

Synopsis:
Save the tubes.
Save some dryer lint, or cotton balls, or something like that to stuff inside the tubes.
Spray the lint or whatever with Permethrin (check the link)
Stuff it loosely inside the tubes
Spread the tubes around in areas where you expect to find small rodents and they won't be bothered by your pets or people

Why and what:
The tick life cycle relies on small mammals.
Permethrin is highly toxic to ticks
The small mammals use the lint as bedding material.

For self defense where you cannot use tubes I use Permethrin spray. So before I go into the woods I spray my boots, pant cuffs above the boot, shirt sleeves, hat, etc.

I don't just indiscriminately spray lawns etc. because Permethrin is also toxic to bees and cats.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks, we are going to give that a try. We have all the ingredients, we just need to start a program to deal with the ticks!!!!


As for the horses and Oscar, we give them a wormer in their food, but haven't done anything for ticks. We need to fix this.

 

[95XL883]

Eddie,

Thanks for the heads up. I'd hate to lose our GSD. Raiden is beautiful. I hope he recovers quickly and fully.

Miscellaneous comments from reading this thread.

I wouldn't use pliers, tweezers or a not object to remove a tick. I've been told, and it makes sense to me, that it causes them to spit up into the bite increasing/worsening any infection.

I can usually get my fingernail underneath their body, pinching the hypostome (barbed mouth part anchoring the tick) and pulling it out. Failing a fingernail, a couple of credit cards, drivers license or similar other hard plastic works well for pinching the hypostome and removing the tick.

The tick twister looks interesting and should work. I plan to get several.

Permethrin is great stuff. I don't buy the pre-mixed stuff as it so expensive. Instead I go on-line and buy a 32 ounce bottle of 43%(?) concentrate for $25. Cut it to .5% solution and it will make many gallons of spray. (Mine came with instructions on mixing it to other strengths for other uses like termite control.) I hate ticks so bad that at the beginning of each season I heavily treat a set of clothes and boots with Permethrin. Once a week I treat them again with a light spray. If I'm going into a heavy chigger area, I'll also treat socks and the inside of boots. The weekly treating is probably overkill as a single treatment in supposed to last 5 weeks and isn't affected by washing. Buying the concentrate and cutting it makes it cheap to over-treat. I haven't had a tick attach to my wife, my boys or myself since doing the weekly treatments and we do venture into some pretty heavy tick infested areas.

For our GSD, we give her a monthly oral tick treatment. I also give her legs a light spray treatment just before we venture into the tick areas. (The vet said it would be okay as Permethrin is the active ingredient in Lice shampoo.) We only got her last July and so far she has been tick free (but we are only on the property once/maybe twice a week).

I also have heard that Guinea fowl are very good for tick control. Another effective control is field burning and our field is pretty tick free. But I don't want to risk damaging trees by burning the low brush in the woods so those areas have high tick populations. Diatomaceous earth is supposed to be deadly to any exo-skeleton insect/arachnid but I haven't tried it.

The permethrin in dryer lint is a great tip. I'll be trying it this year. The d**m pack rats are so bad that I'm sure they really contribute to the tick problem.

Again, good luck and best wishes to Raiden. And thanks again for the heads up.

 

[95XL883]

A tick story. A couple of years ago I was sitting on the ground turkey hunting. My clothing was all Permethrin treated so I wasn't worried about ticks. I watched a couple start crawling across my leg. Pretty soon I could tell they were staggering, walking/crawling erratically. As I'm watching this a grasshopper lands on my leg, picks up a tick and proceeds to eat it. It picked it up and held it taking bites. It handled it like you or I would eat a sandwich. When finished, it ate the second one. It was interesting watching the grasshopper take bites out the tick. Better them than me.

I hadn't treated my backpack. During that morning's hunt I saw probably ten ticks crawl across it. Only two on my clothing and they were obviously affected by the Permethrin. On the way home, I left the bag in the bed of the truck and then treated it when I got home. I hate ticks.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you again for the information on Permethrin. I have the house treated every spring for termites and random bugs. We put out stuff for fire ants and every now and then I'll buy one product or another that attaches to my hose and spray down the house if I see the bugs coming back.

We tried guineas and failed miserably. We are trying again, but it's slow going. We where up to 18 birds and thought it was going well, but then they started disappearing every night. One bird at a time. We didn't have the electric fence done at the time, and we think a big raccoon was climbing up the tree and getting one while they slept. No sign of feathers like you see when a hawk or owl kills them. We've seen that a few times since trying to rebuild. We now have the area entirely surrounded with three rows of electric wire. The lowest is just a few inches off the ground. It's a lot of maintenance keeping the grass from growing there, but that seems to be the only solution. I set out two traps and caught everything but the one killing the guineas. I guess he knew what he wanted and wasn't going to mess with anything I put in the trap.

We have also tried free range roosters. My wife refuses to let her laying hens out, but roosters are so mean she could care less if they live or die. After being attacked by them, I agree. A few have been killed just because of how mean they are towards us, others disappeared to coyotes. We have a few out with the horses and will add to them, but wont mess with them around the house.

 

[bigdeano]

I had Lyme disease for 20 years. Stupid doctors wouldn't do anything for me even when I told them I had the bullseye rash. Lyme tests aren't always accurate, but that's all they looked at. I finally found an alternative treatment that worked. I think I got it from a flea bite from a dog I rescued that someone had dumped out by the road. I didn't see any tick.

 

[dmccarty]

We have a variety of tick pullers but this is the one that works best most of the time.

Amazon.com : Pro-tick Remedy with 5x Magnifier, Key Chain, Tick Id Card and Tick Tutorial : Tick Removal Device : Pet Supplies

The twister pullers help in hard to reach spots.

You do not want to squeeze or cause the tick to puke since that means they are injecting more toxin, if the tick has any, into the body.

I have been using Permethrin for years and it works. I have seen hundreds of chiggers marching up my treated pant legs but they would slow down and either fall off or stop moving. They be dead. I also use DEET sprayed on the clothes.

Years ago I read of a baiting and treating station for deer. Pretty sure it was on TBN. The station would bait deer to feed. The station had what looked like paint rollers that would apply Permethrin to the deer. This deer treatment drastically reduced tick populations in the area after a couple of years.

Later,
Dan

 

[teejk]

Lived in NY (for too long)...Westchester Co where no hunting is allowed hence not unusual to see several deer 10 ft from the front door. Our cocker spaniel (RIP) started having problems climbing...Lyme test came back negative but somehow we stumbled across "anaplasmosis"...when we moved back to Wis he started showing the same symptoms...was never heard of around here until I asked the vet to check...a friend was about ready to have her King Charles undergo expensive surgery (after $$$ spent). When she described the symptoms I told her to ask her vet. It is a tick-borne disease that is moving west. All tick-borne diseases seem to have a common trait...your dog can go down-hill ok but can't climb.

 

[BoylermanCT]

How's Raiden doing?

 

[Ed of all trades]

How's Raiden doing?

Yes I would like to know as well. Ed

 

[NoTrespassing]

Our dog Halo had Lyme and recovered very quickly. She was on antibiotics for awhile. We use permethrin on our yard regularly but had lapsed prior to Halo contracting Lyme disease. Thankfully our vet is very sharp and experienced and diagnosed Halo almost immediately upon seeing her without additional tests. We also had a dog contract heartworm on this property years ago.

Permethrin knocks down all kinds of bugs. I usually spray the yard before we have outdoor parties and the mosquitos and flies are almost nonexistent for about a week. We don't have cats btw. When I used to have horses I used permethrin directly on them in a weak solution.

Kevin

 

[EddieWalker]

Our dog Halo had Lyme and recovered very quickly. She was on antibiotics for awhile. We use permethrin on our yard regularly but had lapsed prior to Halo contracting Lyme disease. Thankfully our vet is very sharp and experienced and diagnosed Halo almost immediately upon seeing her without additional tests. We also had a dog contract heartworm on this property years ago.

Permethrin knocks down all kinds of bugs. I usually spray the yard before we have outdoor parties and the mosquitos and flies are almost nonexistent for about a week. We don't have cats btw. When I used to have horses I used permethrin directly on them in a weak solution.

Kevin

What did you dilute it down to on the horses? Flies can get really bad and so far, we're not winning this battle.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

We had a big scare this morning. One of our dogs,. Raiden, was lame this morning in his back legs. We noticed that he had trouble getting up on our wood floor yesterday, but thought it was more funny that his feet kept slipping and never thought that there might be a problem. That was a HUGE MISTAKE that could have led to his death!!!!

Tick Paralysis in Dogs | petMD

We took Raiden in to the vet and he did a full exam, including an x ray of his spine and hips. The x ray showed that everything was good. The vet feels it's tick paralysis caused by the saliva in some ticks. The paralysis acts quickly over a couple of days and starts with his balance and legs. Then it works into his internal organs, and they dog dies. From what we are learning, it happens in days!!!!

The Vet gave him huge amounts of steroids and antibiotics this morning. Now, several hours later, he seems to be responding and is now able to sit up and even stand a little. He is still very shaky and he went back down right after getting up, but we are encouraged that the medicine is working.

This shook me up and I wanted to share with everyone in case you ever notice your dog losing his balance and/or quickly goes lame. There is very little time to act once this happens!!!!

My two dogs get frontline year round as ticks become active right above freezing.

And heart worm year round as well.

 

[EddieWalker]

How's Raiden doing?

This morning he was really bad. I have to pick him up and carry him outside to go potty. The evening after he first went on his meds, he was able to sit up and even walk a few steps. The second day, he was even better. This morning, he couldn't get up, roll over or even lift his head up. He just laid there on his side. Karen and I both that that he was near the end. Tick Paralyses affects the nervous system. It is a neuro toxin. It destroys something to do with how nerves control muscles. It usually starts at the back legs, then the front legs, then the internal organs. Usually the lungs stop working first of the internal organs.

There is no blood test for this since it's all in the nervous system. Texas A&M can do the tests, and we'll go there if the meds do not work.

We went to the vet right away and when we got there, Raiden was showing more life. He was raising his head and looking around. The vet checked his temperature, lungs and did a full exam with good results. The other vet working there came in and did a blood test just to make sure there wasn't anything else going on. The blood test was only for disease. It came back negative. No diseases.

The vet said that he thinks Raiden over did it during the night and just plain wore himself out. Now that he's had some time to rest, he has a little strength back. We got home a little bit ago and he seems even better. He's stood up twice and even walked a little bit.

This is just so sad for us to see him like this. He is 12 months old and a very big part of our family.

We are posting everything that is happening on Facebook. Mostly our friends are giving us positive support. Some have been through this and are offering advice and suggestions on treatment, what it is, and how to fight ticks.

Here is a link to the first picture I posted about this.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...973890989634.117345.1313824209&type=3&theater

And a few more pictures from yesterday and today.

Doing better with the meds, but still not able to stand up



Me and Raiden playing a little bit



Waiting to go into the vet and he just lifted his head on his own for the first time today!!!



Athena on the left is very worried about Raiden. She is sticking around close to him while he rests

 

[mapper]

Here's hoping and holding a positive thought for his full recovery. Our critter kids are so dear to all of us.