Border collie Jack passed away on February 28, 2022

[ozzi]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Ticks ARE nasty! I have pulled so many off of my dogs and myself over the years...even one in February after taking a walk in the woods in Connecticut! One of my previous dogs, Bonkers, had Lyme's disease from a tick and I have had it twice.

Here's a fun fact about ticks: they are all right-handed, and embed themselves with their right hand, so when pulling them off of you or your animal, it's best to grab them with a pair of tweezers and rotate them counterclockwise. I always put them in a piece of tape so they can't escape, and throw them in the trash.

[peggy0]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Never heard the right handed thing before. Geez Kevin Lymes disease is nasty! Stay out of the woods man

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

So far, the only other tick we have seen is one dead one on the carpet yesterday. Looks like the Advantix is doing its job.

Fortunately these are big honking dog ticks and Jack walked into them white chest first so most of them were easy to find. But they are sneaky little buggers who dig in quick.

Kevin - Yikes! Lyme disease seems to be almost more common in the east than in the west. As much as I hate using Advantix on Jack, I hate ticks and tick diseases even more and it seems like too many of the places we would take him are infested.

We had a huge infestation right here at home actually with Chris. He LOVED bunny dens and I made the mistake of taking him to a weedy field near our house to sniff the bunny dens. He apparently brought home a boatload of ticks - soft and hard ones - and they were everywhere... it was so gross. My husband was working nights at the time so I worked late into the night too and I would look over and find multiple ticks crawling up the walls at night. We sprayed and sprayed and eventually got rid of them but it took a while.

Worst of all here is that we have them year round. Deer ticks it turns out are most active in the winter...

You are so right - never again to that spot! He didn't even go to the bathroom!!

Natalie

[ozzi]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

So, here's another fun fact! Lyme Disease was first identified in 1975 in Lyme, CT, hence the name. It is VERY prevalent in the Northeast, and Ipswich has the highest rate of Lyme's in the country. Specifically, the road that I live on!! Here's a link from 1989 discussing Lyme's on my street...please know that we don't hire hunters to shoot deer anymore!
Kevin
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/03/us...its-worst.html

[AlisonandMia]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

We live in terror of ticks in our area as, while we or our animals are very, very unlikely to catch a tick-borne disease (not totally impossible though) we have the dreaded paralysis tick. Tick season is basically all the warmer months - which is probably about 10 months of the year these days and in these parts.

If a dog gets a tick here, and it is one of the nasty ones (we have non-paralysis ticks too), it often means about 3 days at the vet, at least $400.00 worth of anti-venom (last time I heard) and no guarantee of success - although usually they pull through but it does depend on lots of things. My sister-in-law lost an elderly dog to a tick some years ago.

We just have to plaster on the Advantix, check them regularly (including inside the mouth!), avoid dense scrubby, grassy environments - and hope for the best. We also have to check ourselves of course.
At least one or two kids end up in hospital with tick paralysis most years and it is a real problem for non-marsupial mammals such as fruit bats - they literally fall out of the trees, poor things. The marsupials seem to be more or less immune to the tick toxin. Out in the rural areas around Brisbane I've heard of people going to get their mail at the end of a 50 foot drive way and coming back with several ticks attached!

I saw something interesting on TV once - there were these scientists trapping ticks by spreading out a large white bedsheet with a lump of dry ice (CO2) in the middle. The ticks just converged on the dry ice thinking (if ticks think which they probably don't) that all the CO2 was the breath of a large juicy animal. They caught what looked like hundreds. I've often wondered if that technique couldn't be used to reduce the number of ticks in an area like a back yard, especially if you repeated the treatment regularly. It would certainly give you an idea of the level of threat in an area.

Zac absolutely hates having Advantix applied (it never seemed to worry Mia one little bit). Anyone else have a dog that hates Advantix? It does sting in wounds and maybe the first time applied it he had a tiny scratch on the area and the horror of it all has stayed with him. He is a great "catastrophizer", our Zac, so that is more than likely the explanation.

Alison

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

There seriously isn't a word that adequately conveys how I feel about ticks! That's absolutely horrible Alison!!

Jack does not seem to be bothered by Advantix and no skin reaction thank goodness cuz I don't know what we would do without it. Mostly it's just tricky to keep him standing while we apply it so it doesn't run into his fur.

We found another one embedded but I think in the process of dying last night. She was not dead but was kind of shriveled up and died quickly after I dropped her into some alcohol.

We have a "Tick Key" that is just a piece of metal with a slot that gets narrower and narrower. You wrap it around the tick and then pull gently sideways to dislodge them.

http://www.amazon.com/Purple-Tick-Key-Removal-Tool/dp/B001HRFXWK

[peggy0]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

I LOVE the dry ice concept. I bet you'd gather up a million mosquitoes with that as well.

[Patty]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

There was a link to "How to build a dry ice trap" in one of the B-naturals newsletters: http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter...-dogs-part-ii/

Link to the trap: http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...and.html?cat=6

Was an interesting read.

[Tikobird]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Thanks for the link for the Tick Key - just purchased one...ticks here in rural Tennessee are out of control this year...our house is in the middle of 50 acres surrounded by woods...my 2 young chocolate labs spend a good part of the day running thru those woods. We brush them before letting the in the house but it's tough spotting them on chocolate labs & have banned them from our bedroom since finding a tick on the bed!!! Hate them little things!

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Jack had a quick vet exam yesterday to assess his back because to me he seems to have some good days and some not so good days since allowing him to exercise a bit.

He did fine on the paw flip test (Conscious proprioceptive!) so that's good news that the spinal cord seems to be functioning better. But he flinched when she palpated his back along those vertebrae.

Given that it's been about 7 weeks since his original episode of severe pain, not a lot of progress.

So we decided to do the neurology consult as Jack is facing many many years of back pain and limitations. He goes next Tuesday to see Dr. Kortz, who, fortunately, is a very kind, quiet person. But since Dr. Kortz is a guy, Jack may be afraid of him. Will have to hope that his Prozac has relieved enough anxiety that he can manage it.

I don't know what we will come out with. Could be there's really nothing to be done for him but manage it - both good news and bad news as any more serious diagnostics involve anesthesia and sticking needles in places that are risky... I don't know what I hope the answer is.

I forget whether I mentioned already that Jack's vet's office currently has plastic inflatable parasites hanging from the ceiling! LOL The tick doesn't look nearly as scary as the real thing, thank goodness. There is a flea, a tick, a round worm, and a tape worm!

Natalie

[Patty]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

I hope the neurology visit is encouraging Natalie.

Guess plastic bugs hanging over your head while you wait is a good attention grabber, lol.

Patty

[peggy0]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Wishing Jack well on his visit Natalie. Bugs sound fun@!

[Tikobird]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Good luck with the tests...Jack's in our prayers!

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

LOL... this was in my email box just now:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...04may_ticksat/

[ozzi]

Re: Jack has a couple of bad discs in his back!

Natalie,
I'll be interested in hearing about Jack's diagnosis. When Ozzi saw the neurologist, he had the exact same reaction of great pain when the doctor palpated over his lumbar spine. The neurologist felt it was lumbosacral stenosis and some herniated discs, although I never did follow through with an MRI, for several reasons. He did look at plain films of Ozzi's lumbar spine, but that was as far as we went with the testing. Hoping things go well for you on Tuesday!
Kevin