OMG! What a scary situation many pet owners find themselves in!
Scenario one -
The little bell on our front door starts ringing, with a
frantic pet owner needing urgent attention. “I found a tick on my dog”.
The white munchkin is put onto the ground, running around
happy as anything, showing no signs of being unwell. The tick has decided to
lodge itself just above the eyelid.
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| Meet Ted and his tick from September 2016. |
Out come the tick pullers, and the tick is removed. All is well, there is peace on earth (and in our waiting room!)
Scenario two –
“Ring Ring” goes our phone. “Russell Vale Animal Clinic,
this is Dirk speaking. How can we help you?”, answers our trusty vet nurse,
Dirk.
“I just pulled a tick off my dog, what do I do? I can’t find
any others. They are breathing up a bit, but walking OK. What do I do?"
So, what do you need to do?
There are variations of Scenario one and two, but the
essentials are still the same – a very worried pet owner, and a pet with a
tick (or two) found on them. Some of the pets are clinically fine, and some are showing early (or maybe advanced) signs of paralysis.
We are always here to help you and your pet, so it is always
the right thing to do to ask us first for help.
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| These are easy to use effective tick pullers |
Firstly....
1.
Pull the tick off using tick pullers – if the
tick is large enough you can grab them with your fingers, do a light twist and
remove WITHOUT squeezing the body. If
the tick is small, you will need Tick removal forceps. If you don’t have these easily available, and
it is possible without hurting or cutting your pet, you can grab a pair of
scissors – open them up slightly, and wedge the tick out (like you would remove
a nail from a floorboard)
2.
Don’t be frightened that you are going to leave
the head in – this rarely, if ever happens. Studies have shown that the body
will reject the tick head as a foreign body (like a splinter).
What you do next depends on whether your pet is showing
signs of tick poisoning or not.
The usual signs include
- - Loss of voice (they sound like they have laryngitis)
- - Cats will often walk close to the ground (as if to hug it), and will flail their legs all over the place when picked up (they can’t handle the loss of balance/strength)
- - Dogs will often walk as if they had a few too many beers at the pub
- - Their breathing rate will increase, which will progress to difficulty breathing out (expiratory grunting)
- - We may see local paralysis (eg around the eye, they will have trouble closing the eyelids, or on the side of the face, the lip will droop (as it affects the facial nerve).
- It causes an ascending paralysis (which means that it starts at the back legs, and “ascends” or extends to the front legs, affecting the muscles of breathing and swallowing along the way.
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| "I can't close my eye" - look for a tick in the area. |
If they are normal, then what you need to
do is
1.
Keep them quiet – no walks for a few days
2.
Keep them not too hot, not too cold, but just
right!
3.
Give them tick preventatives immediately. We recommend Nexguard or Bravecto immediately
in our dogs, and Frontline Spray (all over) for our cats, as we want to kill
any other ticks that may be on the body.
4.
Do a thorough tick search TWICE a day.
5.
If after FIVE days, your pet has shown no signs
of tick poisoning, then you have dodged a bullet.
Be mindful though, that it takes up to a month for tick
toxin to circulate out of the body, so if your pet picks up another tick during
that time, it is possible for them to come down with tick poisoning, even if you pull the tick off straight away. The effects are cumulative.
Also, if they over exert themselves, you may see signs of weakness.
Also, if they over exert themselves, you may see signs of weakness.
Whilst most pets will only have one tick, and that 90% of
ticks will be either on the shoulders or head, I have seen them down ears, inside
the mouth and have heard of them going into vagina’s and prepuces (males).
Ticks can be anywhere – they have no shame!
Ticks can be anywhere – they have no shame!
If your pet is not normal, and showing active signs of tick
poisoning then you need to see a vet ASAP.
If your pet can swallow, then follow step number 3 above.
If they cannot swallow, then your vet will advise you on the
safest anti-tick therapy for your pet.
As there are signs of tick poisoning, your pet’s body is
overwhelmed with the toxin, and the sooner therapy is started, the sooner your
pet will recover. There is a twelve hour
lag between administering the serum to when we see signs of improvement, as the
tick antitoxin will only neutralise the toxin circulating in the blood stream –
it will do nothing for the tick toxin at the nerve muscle junction or at the
point of attachment.
At Russell Vale Animal Clinic, we follow the modern guidelines
on tick poisoning management, coupled with over 25 years of experience in
dealing with tick cases. Every tick case is different, as our pets are
individuals.
What happens at the vets?
All of our affected pets are admitted into hospital, are
sedated and kept quiet under strict observation.
An intravenous catheter is placed, and tick serum is
administered slowly over 15 minutes, monitoring for signs of a reaction to the
serum (rare but possible). During this
time, oxygen is administered, and your pet’s blood pressure is also monitored.
A dose of replacement fluids is also given to help rehydrate
the pet, as they will often be going without food or water for a few days.
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| NB - this is on "demo mode" for the picture |
In some cases, we need to perform an ECG (to look for
elongated QT syndrome), as we do know that there is a cardiac component to the
tick toxin. In some cases they need to have a tube placed into their airway, or
have oxygen delivered via a nasal tube.
We always monitor for a pet’s ability to urinate, as it is
not uncommon for the bladder muscle to also struggle to do its job.
You know what?
My heart sinks every time I need to treat a tick poisoning case, as my head spins with all of the things that can go wrong. Granted, 99% of the time the pet makes a full recovery, but there are some pets who suffer from life long heart damage or muscle fatigue.
It is one of those things where prevention is the best medicine.
