Is your pet having trouble breathing ? Is their pattern of breathing sounding very noisy as they breath out? Are they also having trouble walking, or not going up the stairs as easily as they used to? Of course, this could mean many things, such as old age, arthritis or heart problems... but these are also the tell tale signs of paralysis tick poisoning.
Last summer, 14 year old SuZu (not a typo) came in, with his owners in tears. His owner thought SuZu had reached the end of his days, even though he had been quite sprightly up until the day before. The rapid deterioration in him made the owner think of strokes or a heart attack.
Fortunately, the way he was walking (as if he was drunk), and the splat of the legs made tick poisoning top of the list of possibilities. A tick search found the culprit (pictured below) - it was confirmed that SuZu had Paralysis Tick poisoning, and was going to live a lot longer.
Whenever you do a tick search on your pet (which you should do daily by the way in our neck of the woods), you need to be methodical. You need to do what Dirk calls the "touchy feely session" - that is, you need to move your hands over your pet from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail.
Those sneaky ticks can be anywhere - they can be up noses, down ear canals and up private bits (if you know what I mean). Fortunately, though 80% of them tend to be on the front half of the dog.
What are some of the other signs?
- Some pets sound like they have laryngitis -- their bark or meow are a bit hoarse
- Vomiting/gagging
- Localised paralysis (eg ticks near the eyes can make it difficult for eyes to close, or a lip to droop)
- and of course, the walk as if they are drunk or weak in the back legs.
Most times the signs comes on over several hours, but I have seen cases that have walked the same for a week (and thus making tick poisoning low on the differential diagnosis list).
What are some of the more unusual signs?
With cats, their legs go all haywire when you go to pick them.
With dogs, vomiting/gagging only can occur, or just heavy breathing only.
If you find a tick?
We use a "tick puller", which looks like the other end of a hammer - it makes pulling ticks of eyelids and other sensitive areas very very easy. Another method is the grab it, do a slight twist and remove. The problem with that method is, you need a pet that doesn't move much, and a tick you can grab onto and remove quickly.
My dad used the thread of cotton trick - he would grab a length of sewing cotton, make a small circle, and virtually wrap that around the head end of the tick (as the bum end is sticking out), and then he would close it until it separated the tick from the pet.
If you are experienced, with good gripping fingers, you can just grab the tick and remove it quickly.
Leaving a "head" behind is not a problem.
Most times, however, what you think is a head, is actually a bit of the pet's own tissue as a result of the two sucking pincers of the tick.
If your pet is showing any signs of tick poisoning, then they need urgent veterinary attention. The neutralising anti-tick serum is administered, and hospitalisation is needed to monitor until they are walk, eat, drink, wee and poop.
The take home message
During tick season, any pet walking or acting funny is "tick poisoning" until proven otherwise.
