Ugh. Tick. Again!

[Guest carriej]

Uggghhh

 

So as some of you know, I'm a Canadian who has never seen a dog tick in my entire life. Or any other kind of tick for that matter. I live in Atlantic Canada and it's just too darn cold. We do see some deer ticks, but I have never seen one, but people tell me they exist.

We found about 10 brown dog ticks total in the fall/early winter. We thought we got them all as we haven't seen any since then.

 

I'm rubbing Chance's neck tonight and what do I feel...A #&)%(&%)ing tick.

 

I run, get my tweezers, my little jar of alcohol to kill this beast. However, I get to the tick and... It's dead? Not very engorged either... Why is it dead? Chance has not had any flea treatments for months (since we are treating for a skin infection and the vet does not want to aggravate it). It was kind of crusty like it had been there awhile. Also, there is a good sized lump on Chance's neck where it was attached. He is currently on antibiotics for a skin infection, so I am assuming it would clear up anything too.

 

How long can a dead tick stay attached? It still didn't come off super easy, but as soon as I looked at it I could tell it was dead as it was all dry and weird looking.

 

I'm curious if it's possible it's been on there for months (!!!), but seems impossible as he has had several baths and I pet and rub him so much.

 

I really don't know where these ticks are harbouring. We haven't seen one since January, so I don't see how we could have gone 5 months without seeing one for one to pop up. They are brown dog ticks, which aren't native to here so I know he didn't pick it up somewhere.

[Guest Lillypad]

Damn, I thought you might be spared this summer after all you went through. I am orginally from NS lots of family in NB. Boy oh boy you must be at wits end, I don't know what to say except.. they are hellish creatures, yes.

[kudzu]

Aventiclav kills ticks? That's not too likely. Don't worry about the lump. It will go away in time. If it worries you just mention it to your vet at a follow up visit. No advice or enlightenment on the tick. Hope very much you don't find another.

[Neighsayer]

When I pull ticks off me, I get a lump like that. It shouldn't be a problem. Hope that is your last tick. I don't think it's been there for months. They do dry up quickly when dead. Good luck! I hate ticks! I found nine on me earlier this week after cutting my grass!

[Guest carriej]

I don't mean that the antibiotics would kill the tick - I just mean any kind of infection from the bite since the area looked nasty last night.

 

Luckily this morning the lump is gone.

 

Now I'm paranoid again. Yuck. Thankfully the thing was dead. I'm just curious how it died or what killed it. Long story short, local vets know nothing about ticks. They don't see them. It's like uncharted territory. They don't even have stuff to treat them or really know anything about tick borne diseases. Hopefully the ticks I found were not infected with any kind of disease.

 

At the same time, trying to deal with Chances rash...

 

I said to myself when we adopted Chance "please let him be a healthy grey" as my other two always seemed to have issues as well. Sigh. Yet my neighbours can let their dogs run wild outside and barely pay attention to them and they're healthy as can be.

[Hubcitypam]

Long story short, local vets know nothing about ticks. They don't see them. It's like uncharted territory. They don't even have stuff to treat them or really know anything about tick borne diseases. Hopefully the ticks I found were not infected with any kind of disease.

 

I know the unknown is scary, but maybe you can lessen some of your paranoia by making an effort to find a vet open to being educated on TBDs. One of my previous vets didn't know much about greyhounds and boy howdy, after a couple of years of treating my dogs and a boat load of fosters he is now one of the preferred vets for the largest GH rescue here.

 

IMHO the best thing that you can do is find out if there is a Canadian diagnostic lab like Prototek in Chandler, AZ that can run full panels that include babesia. Maybe contact Protatek and ask for leads. It seems one of the Universities on the east coast (U of NC or NC State...or...someone will chime in and tell you which) does a lot of tick work and might have ideas for you in Canada. Run a full panel, treat if needed and relax.

 

A lot of greyhounds do have TBDs. My Harley had RMSF, I knew Bella would have eherlicha before I finished pulling ticks off of her. I quit counting at 200. One foster hit the grand slam and had all 4 TBDs. Every one of those dogs was treated and went on to live a happy life. There HAVE to be mail order places in Canada that carry stuff to treat them if you are talking topical preventative. Any vets office should have access to doxy, immizol, etc. for treatment.

 

Educate yourself so you can help educate a willing vet, get the dog tested, treat if necessary then take a VERY deep breath. The only time ticks have skeeved me out is after bringing back a load of dogs from a farm of a few from a pound I found a tick wandering aimlessly on me.

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2014 by Hubcitypam

[kudzu]

I don't mean that the antibiotics would kill the tick - I just mean any kind of infection from the bite since the area looked nasty last night.

Sorry. I was just kidding. Didn't even consider you may have meant the anti-b was a tick zapper. If only it could be, huh? That'd give you 3 weeks of potential tick eradication. Here's hoping that little sucker was the last hanger on, figuratively & literally.

[Guest carriej]

It's just so bizarre since we haven't seen any since January. 5 months seems like a long time to go without spotting one! We have a relatively small (1100 sq foot) house that's relatively free of clutter and I've gotten good at finding them.

 

One of the universities offers free tick testing but since my dogs aren't from here they don't qualify. I've asked my vet if it's possibly if I could pay and she said maybe eventually but not while they're running the program.

 

It's very frustrating because they seem to brush off my claims. I think I have a bit of a reputation from the local vets as being "paranoid" as I live in a small town where the overall population does not look after their animals to the standards that I do.

[KF_in_Georgia]

Brown ticks may not be native to you guys, but is it possible you've "imported" some on your boy? If the ticks fell off or were shed outside, they wouldn't just die from being in new territory. Seriously cold weather typically sends ticks into hibernation (wish it would just kill them off), but you could conceivably have a new colony outside now that the weather is warmer.

[Guest carriej]

I contemplated that idea; but we had a very long winter in the -35 to -40 degrees Celsius with close to ten feet of snow in areas. Our rescue has been bringing up greys for 7 years and has never had anyone else with this problem, which leads me to believe that they must not be able to survive here as I can't possibly be the only one

 

I also checked my neighbours dogs (who run wild through my yard and everyone elses) and not only do they not have ticks on them, not so much as a darn flea.

[Guest carriej]

Found another one last night around 1am... CRAWLING ACROSS MY PILLOW ON MY BEDDING FRESH FROM THE DRYER.

 

Ask me how much sleep I got.

 

Go ahead.

[Guest LazyBlaze]

Yikes! I would not be at all happy about that either. My guess is that one or two must've somehow survived the winter and are now back ready to breed. I really hope you can get shot of them, they are creepy wee things, I hate them too.

[Guest carriej]

My house is white with diatomaceous earth. Food grade, no worries. Totally pet safe and even has instructions for eating it on the back (apparently it's good in orange juice - urk). The tick I found last night was not an adult tick, seemed mid size. It was in an awful darn hurry too. I couldn't find anymore today; so I'm a bit hesitant to call in pest control. I called and inquired and they kind of scratched there heads. They said they have treated yards for deer ticks but never a house but that whatever they spray should kill it (it's a guaranteed service anyway). However I am not crazy about these chemicals around me or my animals. I also have a huge reef aquarium in the basement so I would have to look at how to cover that and vent an airline outside somehow.

 

I guess if I keep finding them I will have no choice but to get pest control.

[Guest carriej]

Have been checking Chance 2x per day and have not seen any signs of ticks... In the last 8 months, we have found about 10-12. What are the chances of them being the only ones? One would think that we would be seeing them more frequently if there were more..