![]() ![]() We’ve discussed oral and topical pesticides that are fed to or applied to dogs to kill ticks in other articles (see Prescription Flea and Tick Medication, WDJ September 2017). To protect your family members from tick-borne disease, then, your job is two-fold: Do everything that you can to keep ticks off of your dog, and quickly find and remove any ticks that do manage to climb aboard. burgdorferi may be found in fewer than five percent of ticks. In southern New England – the epicenter of Lyme infection – about 20 to 30 percent of tick nymphs and 30 to 50 percent of adult ticks are infected with B. Most prevalent is the species that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi. The rate of their infection varies by geographic location, species and life-stage of the tick, and species of spirochete. Not all ticks carry the spirochetes that cause disease in mammals. The longer the tick feeds, the longer the spirochetes have to infect the tick’s newest host. When a tick sucks blood from an infected mammal, bird, or reptile (common hosts include mice, chipmunks, deer, birds, and lizards) the spirochetes come aboard and set up shop inside the tick when the infected tick bites its next host, the spirochetes slip into the new victim through the tick’s saliva. These spirochetes are parasites of the ticks themselves! Ingeniously, they use ticks to help them move from one host to another. But, depending on what part of the country you live in, the ticks around you may carry any number of other spirochetes that cause other painful diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, and more. Most of us are aware that ticks can be infected with the spirochetes (microscopic bacterial organisms) that cause Lyme disease (for more information, see Lyme Disease in Dogs, WDJ October 2018). I lack words to describe the sheer perniciousness of this insect’s survival strategy. Bloating themselves with blood, ticks expand in size exponentially before falling off, able now to reproduce – gross! Add in the fact that a certain percentage of ticks may also infect your dog (or you!) with a disease that can cause pain and suffering for the rest of his life – that’s beyond creepy. It’s creepy enough that there are billions of these tiny insects living in the woods and fields, just waiting to latch onto your dog (or you!) and suck your blood.
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