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With over 90 species in the USA, anywhere you go ticks can pose a health hazard to your pet. These parasitic arachnids run less than an inch long and weigh less than a tenth of an ounce, but their bite can transmit life-threatening tick-borne diseases and toxins.
A number of tick-borne diseases can result in neurologic illness, from Lyme disease to tick paralysis. Cats get tick-borne diseases, too, though less commonly. In fact, some studies show that felines usually resist Lyme disease successfully.
The good news? If you carefully examine your pet after any time spent outside, you can remove a tick before it has time to transmit disease. That means a slow, thorough check of the whole body, including the ears, armpits and groin area. The bad news? Infected ticks that escape notice have the potential to do a lot of damage to your pet.
Tick-borne Diseases in Dogs
One tick-borne disease that is seen in the Carolinas is called tick paralysis. It’s caused by a toxin in the tick’s saliva that produces fairly rapid, progressive paralysis: Dogs lose muscle tone and become flaccid. Nerves in the head can also be affected, resulting in facial weakness or swallowing problems; in severe cases, respiratory muscles may become paralyzed. Luckily, the condition goes away when the tick is removed, and exposure to its saliva ends.
We’re also at relatively high risk for ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. If you’re curious about the likelihood of tick-related diseases, consult this parasite prevalence map, which shows the risk for individual counties.
Ehrlichiosis occurs when bacteria infect white blood cells and platelets, causing symptoms associated with inflammation and problems with clotting. You might see depression and lethargy, spontaneous nose bleeds or leg lameness, or bruising on the gums or belly. In anaplasmosis, a different bacterium transmitted from a different tick causes similar problems with similar symptoms.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever affects pets and people in similar ways and can kill a dog if left untreated. Look for acute fever, depression and/or lack of energy, arthritic-style stiffness when walking or wobbliness and hypersensitivity to touch.
Lyme disease often takes longer to show up and has some of the same symptoms as ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis, including spontaneous and shifting leg lameness and depression. Left alone, it can lead to serious kidney disease and, in rare cases, affect other organs.
Transmission of disease depends on how long the tick stays attached to your pet. The infection for ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be transmitted in three to six hours. Lyme may not happen until 24 to 48 hours after the tick attaches. Tick paralysis requires up to 72 hours of continuous biting. That’s why symptoms may take a week or more to show up.
Treating Tick-borne Diseases
Vets often have to become detectives, because symptoms overlap. Some tick diseases cause obvious changes in blood work; some induce a fever that has no clear origin. If the doctor can’t find a tick on the dog’s body, she’ll ask about places it may have walked or traveled. (Different species of tick live in different parts of the U.S.)
The gold standard for testing is a vector-borne disease panel. Also, new tests have been developed that can screen for as many as 22 pathogens with a single test. Because test results for these diseases can take several weeks, veterinarians often start patients on antibiotics if a tick-borne illness is suspected. That course of antibiotics can last a month or so and requires follow-up monitoring.
One piece of happy news for owners: A diseased dog cannot infect a healthy one, even via saliva. If you have two sick pets, then a tick bit both.
How You Can Prevent Diseases from Ticks
As noted, examine animals carefully every time they come inside. Also, examine yourself to make sure ticks haven’t landed in your hair or on your clothing, where they can drop onto pets.
Healthy dogs may wear anti-tick collars or be protected by topical solutions. While some tick prevention does not avert a bite, using a tick prevention product with a repellant or rapid kill is ideal to minimize the risk of disease transmission from a tick.
You might also talk to your primary care vet about an annual 4DX test that looks for heartworm and the bacteria behind Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis. It’s a valuable tool.
Charlotte Animal Referral and Emergency treats pets the way a medical center for humans treats people. CARE operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It provides all types of treatment, from emergency attention to board-certified specialty work, once you get a referral from a primary care veterinarian. You can take a visual tour of the practice at carecharlotte.com/tour.
