Tick Talk!

Ticks

There you are, happily petting your beloved dog, when your fingertips feel something in the fur.  Is it a burr?  A new skin tag?  Ewww, it has legs!  It’s a tick!  While we at Richview Animal Hospital are lovers of biology, nature and ecology, it is hard to find a silver lining to these little guys.  I guess they provide some snacking for birds, and were the inspiration for a fairly amusing cartoon character in the 90s, but they are hard to love.  Here are a few pertinent information points about ticks in Ontario:

1. The two ticks you are most likely to run into in these parts are the American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) and the Black-legged Deer Tick (Ixodes scapularis).  The deer ticks are the ones that rather famously carry Lyme disease, which can infect people and dogs.  However they can carry other diseases we don’t see that much around here, such as Erlichia and Anaplasmosis, but when they do show up they can make animals quite sick as well.
2. The incidence of ticks seems to be increasing.  We are finding this to be true anecdotally, ie in talking with clients and in the number of ticks we are finding on animals coming to the clinic, and there have been some reports that incidence of Lyme is increasing in the sampled tick populations in parks and natural areas along the northern shore of Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands, as well as the tick populations themselves seem to be growing in these areas.  These are some of our most beautiful and beloved spots in Ontario, and there is no need to panic, but we should all be alert and consider precautions if visiting these areas with our dogs. 
3. Prevention is a huge part of preventing tick bites, from wearing light coloured clothes and tucking your pants into your socks if walking in areas they love, ie long grass, brushy woods, to checking yourself and your dogs daily if you have been in a tick-risk area.  Ticks need to be attached and feeding for about 24 hours before they have ingested enough blood to then regurgitate their disease-carrying stomach contents and spread infection.  So daily checking and prompt removal are essential.   There are also a number of products available for tick prevention in dogs, from oral meds to topical meds to collars.  We are happy to help you find the best fit for your pet.  If tick protection is not possible, then we can discuss the Lyme vaccine option as well.
4. If you find a tick on your dog, we recommend you come in so we can remove it.  If you are unable to come in, you can try to remove it by grasping firmly on the area closest to the head with a pair of tweezers, or use a tick removal tool, and apply gentle but firm pressure with no twisting.  The tick should release its mouthparts, but this may take a minute or two.  The mouth part is the most important part to remove, so if it gets left behind, come see us to get it out before 24 hours from possible time of the tick biting.  If removed at home, we also encourage you to bring the tick in so we can identify it as a deer tick or a dog tick.  We can then advise you on follow up for the tick bite and determine if Lyme disease testing would be indicated. 

In a nutshell, prevention is your best weapon.  As anyone who has had Lyme disease will tell you (see the recent interviews with Avril Lavigne), it is really a whole lot worse than remembering to dab something on the dog and risk looking a bit goofy walking in the woods with your socks over your pants.  We all at Richview Animal Hospital would like to give a big get well soon wish to Avril!