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Greyhound Color And Ticks


Guest brit1

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ok so I admit I have abit of a phobia about lyme disease and do my best to avoid getting ticks on me or my dogs. I love to cuddle my dogs and have them on the bed with me so am aware a tick could stray from them to me. For that reason the last 3 dogs I have adopted (non greys) have been light coloring with the idea that I might spot a tick on them before it strays on to me (and before it attaches to them to prevent them getting Lyme). I admit I do not always see them before they attach but most of the time I do. So now I am planning on finally adopting a grey and had intended to stick with white or fawn but was wondering what others feel about having the darker colorings and whether it really makes a difference regarding ticks and spotting them. Thanks for input :)

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I just use Frontline :) .

Star aka Starz Ovation (Ronco x Oneco Maggie*, litter #48538), Coco aka Low Key (Kiowa Mon Manny x Party Hardy, litter # 59881), and mom in Illinois
We miss Reko Batman (Trouper Zeke x Marque Louisiana), 11/15/95-6/29/06, Rocco the thistledown whippet, 04/29/93-10/14/08, Reko Zema (Mo Kick x Reko Princess), 8/16/98-4/18/10, the most beautiful girl in the whole USA, my good egg Joseph aka Won by a Nose (Oneco Cufflink x Buy Back), 09/22/2003-03/01/2013, and our gentle sweet Gidget (Digitizer, Dodgem by Design x Sobe Mulberry), 1/29/2006-11/22/2014, gone much too soon. Never forgetting CJC's Buckshot, 1/2/07-10/25/10.

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A tick has to stay attached for about 36 hours (long enough to feed on blood) for you to become infected with Lyme disease. According to the Lyme Disease Foundation, there have only been 21,582 cases of Lyme disease reported to the CDC for the year 2009. That makes it, even if you double the amount, not nearly as common as many other things you could contract just through normal living. I say use Frontline, and don't pick your greyhound by color, but by personality.

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Shannon, mom to Shae, Jesse James and Linus the Chinese Cresteds,and bridge angels Sydney Sue and Stewart.

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I live in CT (where lyme disease was originally found) and go into wooded areas a lot with my black hound. I use a preventic collar and I have not found any ticks on him since we started using it. As long as you do good tick checks and use a good preventative, I wouldn't worry much.

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Ticks over here start off a pale fawn colour and only go dark and swollen after a good meal! Easier to see them early on a dark coated dog I would think actually. Never heard of this being a reason for choosing a dog by colour but then you hear something new every day they say!

Sue from England

 

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and luckily lymes disease is fairly uncommon over here too. while i know they are around, i've never seen a tick on blue or millie here in the cotswolds. on blue (blue brindle) they'd be easier to spot as his fur doesn't have an undercoat, mille does, and as a dark brindle and ticked white, you have your choice of coloured areas...

 

 

 

 

Regards,
Wayne Kroncke

CAVE CANEM RADIX LECTI ET SEMPER PARATUS
Vegetarians: My food poops on your food.

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My father and sister in law, both pinkish beige in color, have each contracted Lyme's disease from tick bites--not off the dogs, just out of the bushes. My brother got Babesia, also from a tick. He is freckled.

 

I'm being silly here--but you can get a tick with no dog involved at all, so picking a companion based on color as a means of preventing a treatable ailment seems a little much to me.

 

My brother and his wife don't even OWN a dog--my brother was in the hospital for several days when he got Babesia, and he never even SAW a tick on his body. My sister in law's tick bite was on her "plumber's crack," and all they ever saw was the rash--the tick was long gone and she was infected before they ever saw it. Deer ticks are tiny. A regular tick you'd see on the dog, I suppose, if it was moving and the dog was light colored. A deer tick could EASILY be missed even on a white dog.


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Susan,  Hamish,  Mister Bigglesworth and Nikita Stanislav. Missing Ming, George, and Buck

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My father and sister in law, both pinkish beige in color, have each contracted Lyme's disease from tick bites--not off the dogs, just out of the bushes. My brother got Babesia, also from a tick. He is freckled.

 

I'm being silly here--but you can get a tick with no dog involved at all, so picking a companion based on color as a means of preventing a treatable ailment seems a little much to me.

 

My brother and his wife don't even OWN a dog--my brother was in the hospital for several days when he got Babesia, and he never even SAW a tick on his body. My sister in law's tick bite was on her "plumber's crack," and all they ever saw was the rash--the tick was long gone and she was infected before they ever saw it. Deer ticks are tiny. A regular tick you'd see on the dog, I suppose, if it was moving and the dog was light colored. A deer tick could EASILY be missed even on a white dog.

 

:lol :lol You just made the OP's paranoia much, much worse. :lol

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Shannon, mom to Shae, Jesse James and Linus the Chinese Cresteds,and bridge angels Sydney Sue and Stewart.

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no its ok I just won't go outside for the rest of my life :lol Seriously after my friend almost died of lyme I did get paranoic about it and I agree, most people who I know with lyme don't even own a dog :blink: Anyway, just wanted to get input silly as it may seem, so thanks I appreciate it.

 

:lol :lol You just made the OP's paranoia much, much worse. :lol

 

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A tick has to stay attached for about 36 hours (long enough to feed on blood) for you to become infected with Lyme disease. According to the Lyme Disease Foundation, there have only been 21,582 cases of Lyme disease reported to the CDC for the year 2009. That makes it, even if you double the amount, not nearly as common as many other things you could contract just through normal living.

Unfortunately, Lyme is really sneaky and can be very difficult to diagnose. The symptoms are very similar to disorders like chronic fatigue and hypothyroidism, and stock-standard lab tests often aren't sensitive and specific enough to catch it. Two years ago, Lyme disease expert Dan Kinderleher, M.D said that "the existing 1.8 million cases cited by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) in Atlanta, Georgia had been under-reported by at least ten times. In the United States, according to this projection, in actuality over 18 million Lyme disease patients now exist". Some Lymes experts even believe that it can be spread through sexual contact, or from mother to baby in utero.

 

The good news is, if diagnosed and treated early with antibiotics, acute Lyme Disease may be completely cured.

 

I do agree, though, that this is certainly no basis for choosing the a dog by its color.

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"Hurricane Sandi" (Baurna to Run).

Forever missing my "Angel-With-A Crooked-Halo" Hailey, and "Mokkah" (Xpress Point) with all my heart.

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." ~~Will Rogers

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I thought it was deer ticks that carried lyme, and the size of a deer tick is tiny...it would be hard to spot on any hound. It's about the size of the letter 'm' on a dime.

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Michelle...forever missing her girls, Holly 5/22/99-9/13/10 and Bailey 8/1/93-7/11/05

Religion is the smile on a dog...Edie Brickell

Wag more, bark less :-)

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With 4 different color dogs,I never had ticks until sitting a grey from out in the country. After the boy went home,I found a ring of fat ticks around the neck and between toes on the lightest dog. Never did see them,but felt them and was shocked!. Maybe in a couple days the ticks would be swollen enough to see. Everybody got a bath and frontline.

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Guest RocketDog

I've pulled just as many ticks off dark greys as I have off of light ones... the worst was a black brindle, I probably got 40+ ticks off him in one go, and found a few more once we got him home. I have a black and white parti boy and a fawn brindle and have only ever pulled one tick off of them in the two years we've had them, and that was shortly after the aforementioned ticky brindle boy left. The red brindle foster we have now didn't have any ticks on him when he arrived, and I haven't found any since...

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