Tick"s And Flea"s Not Just A Summer Time Problem Pest

OSU Tick and Flea Control Has charts and pictures to help you identify tick’s and fleas.

This Information is Valid anywhere you find ticks or fleas.

Flea and Tick Control Tips
for Dogs and Cats
Tulsa County
O.S.U. Cooperative Extension Center

Common Dog Tick

Family pets bring great happiness to our lives. However dogs, cats and their owners suffer great discomfort when fleas and ticks enter the picture. So here’s the scoop on managing fleas and ticks.

Both ticks and fleas can be a year-round problem in Oklahoma. Various species of ticks exist here and, as a result, are never all hatching at one time. Fleas persist due to so many pets living indoors, providing an ideal climate for year-round breeding of this insect pest.

With recent breakthroughs in flea and tick control, pets can lead happy pest-free lives.

Flea and tick control can be achieved by using Integrated Pest Management or (IPM) techniques. This means using good sanitation, such as mowing yards and vacuuming homes, to reduce flea and tick populations. It also means understanding the flea life cycle. Although adult fleas make up only 5% of a flea infestation, pesticides have traditionally targeted this part of the life cycle. The remaining 95% consists of eggs, larvae and pupae. Flea offspring must be targeted if they are to be controlled or eliminated.

WHY CONTROL FLEAS AND TICKS?

Fleas are not just a nuisance to us and our pets. They also carry intestinal parasites, such as the dog tapeworm, that can be passed on to the animal. A single flea bite can cause flea- allergy dermatitis on sensitive pets, leading to serious skin infections. Ticks carry many diseases that affect both humans and pets. Heavy populations of these blood sucking pests weaken animals. Older, less vigorous animals suffer more quickly from fleas and ticks.

THINKING LIKE A FLEA

Our worst flea pest is the cat flea ( Ctenocephalides felis ). Fleas need a blood meal to survive. Their favorite hosts around the house and yard are dogs, cats, squirrels and other warm blooded mammals. If people are being bitten by fleas in a house where pets are present then a very high population is present. For every six fleas seen, there are 300 adult fleas actually present. If animals are not present, fleas will opt to hop onto humans. They thrive best in indoor climates.

The presence of adult fleas is just the tip of the iceberg. There are actually many more flea eggs, larvae and pupa just waiting to become adults. Targeting only adult forms of fleas is not at all effective. Long-term, effective flea control is best achieved by use of products that target flea adults and their young.
Flea adult taking a blood meal, excreting bloody material that dries to become “flea dirt”.

Fleas can be controlled with a three step program of treating the pet, their sleeping areas and the moist, shady areas outside of our homes.

Common Deer Tick

Residents living in rural areas should check pets daily for tick infestation. Examine the entire animal, especially around the ears and face. Some ticks, such as the Brown Dog tick, can be found in specific areas of the animal. The brown dog tick adult is most often found in the ears and between the toes. After their eggs hatch, larvae and nymphs are found in the long fur at the back of the neck.

Wash pet bedding in hot, soapy water and thoroughly clean areas frequented by pets, vacuuming carpeted areas and mopping hardwood and tile floors. Treat premises with products labeled for indoor use. Newly hatched fleas live most successfully indoors as they prefer areas out of sunlight, temperatures of 70°-90° F. and high humidity.

Flea eggs drop into carpet and hatch into larvae. These larvae live on organic debris that is in carpeting. They also survive between the cracks of hardwood floors and along baseboards. After feeding for several days, they become a pupa, wrapped in a silken cocoon that is pesticide resistant.

Common Wood Tick

Use an outdoor flea and tick control product in problem areas. Note that methoprene breaks down quickly outdoors. Use products containing pyriproxyfen as an outdoor insect development inhibitor.

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Home  ›  Dog Grooming  ›  How to Avoid Getting “Tick”ed Off This Spring and Summer

How to Avoid Getting “Tick”ed Off This Spring and Summer

It’s that time of year again, folks; the time of year that dog owners the world over dread. That’s right, it’s flea and tick season.  To help you out, here’s our primer on how to protect your pets from the most dangerous of those two bloodsucking baddies: the tick. To learn more about the tick’s menacing counterpart, the flea, check out September’s blog post, found here.

There are four types of tick that are prevalent in North America: the Deer tick, the Brown Dog tick, the Western Black-Legged tick, and the American Dog tick (also known as the Wood tick), with the two Dog ticks being the most common. All of these ticks have been known to spread potentially fatal diseases in dogs and cats, such as Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Canine Ehrlichiosis, and Canine Anaplasmosis, but tend to be less dangerous to humans (with the exception of the Deer tick, which can spread Lyme disease).

So how do you recognize these mini-menaces? Members of the arachnid family, like spiders or scorpions, ticks have four pairs of legs, can have a hard or soft shell, and are usually a shade of reddish-brown. They can be especially hard to notice or discover due to their incredibly small size; most ticks are roughly one-eighth of an inch long prior to feeding! After feeding, ticks can balloon up to half an inch long. Click here for a snapshot of common ticks and the diseases they can carry.

While found most frequently in wooded areas, ticks can lurk in the grass, shrubs, or other foliage in your lawn as well, so it’s best to employ as many preventive measures as possible to keep your pets safe. First and foremost would be utilizing a topical flea-and-tick medication like Frontline® Plus, Revolution®, or K9Advantix®, which can be purchased at your vet or at most local pet stores. One important thing to note when using a topical treatment: do NOT bathe your pet for at least two days, at the risk of washing the medication off. Lyme disease vaccines are also available for dogs, and can be administered by your vet.

Another good preventive measure is to trim any tall grass, bushes, and shrubs that could provide a shelter for ticks. Foliage and vegetation should be as close to the ground as possible. There are also some EPA-approved insecticides available that can be applied under shrubs and bushes and in other crevices where ticks are likely to hide. Don’t worry about spraying your grass; ticks prefer shaded, protected habitats, so those should be your focus.

Also, make a habit of checking your pets for ticks after each trip outside. Focus specifically on the more-exposed patches of skin, such as in and around the ears, the areas where the legs meet the body, between the toes, and within other skin folds, as ticks prefer to settle onto patches of skin with as little hair as possible. Brush your fingers through your pet’s fur, applying enough pressure to sense any small bumps; an embedded tick can range in size from a pinhead to a grape, so spread the fur back and check out any lumps that feel suspicious. Depending on how far embedded the tick is, the legs may or may not be visible.

If you DO find a tick, it is essential to remove it as soon as possible, as ticks typically transmit disease in 24-48 hours of being embedded. The following is a how-to for tick removal; however, if you are nervous to try it yourself, or if the tick is in a hard-to-reach area such as the ear canal, we suggest calling your vet immediately and arranging to bring your pet in ASAP. It is a simple procedure for a vet, and they should be able to fit you in relatively quickly.

TICK REMOVAL PROCEDURE:

TOOLS:

-          latex or nitrile gloves

-          tweezers (preferably fine-tip)

-          rubbing alcohol

-          small jar or empty pill bottle

-          skin disinfectant

-          antibiotic ointment

STEPS:

1)      Put on latex or nitrile gloves; this will protect your skin from any fluid it might come in contact with from the tick or bite site, protecting you from possible Lyme disease or other infection.

2)      Clean tweezers with alcohol to sanitize them.

3)      Fill jar or empty pill bottle at least halfway with rubbing alcohol (to dispose of tick in after removal).

4)      With tweezers, firmly grasp the tick at the top of the head, right where its mouthparts enter your pet’s skin; do NOT grasp the tick by the body! If you pull on the body, it could detach, leaving the head and mouthparts still embedded in the skin and your pet still exposed to infection and disease.

5)      With steady, gentle pressure, pull the tick straight up and away from the skin. Do not twist or jerk the tick. It may take several minutes for the tick to fully release its hold. Be patient. With continued, steady pressure, the tick WILL eventually release its hold.

6)      Place the tick in the jar or empty pill bottle you filled with rubbing alcohol earlier and seal it. You may want to bring this to your vet for identification later, especially if your dog begins to show signs of illness.

7)      Disinfect your pet’s wound with alcohol or another disinfectant to reduce risk of further irritation and infection.

8)      You may also apply an antibiotic ointment to the wound to help prevent infection and encourage faster healing.

9)      Clean your tweezers and dispose of your gloves.

Do not heed old wives’ tails such as using Vaseline or mineral oil to smother a tick, or holding a smoldering match head to it. These can actually cause the tick to burrow further, or release more of its disease-carrying saliva into the wound. Ticks should ONLY be removed using the steps above, or by your veterinarian. Still a little unclear as to how exactly to remove a tick from your pet? Check out this video, which shows you exactly how to do it.

Now that you’ve removed the tick and sanitized the area, you will still need to keep a close eye on your pet for the next three to four weeks to watch for any signs of illness or infection. Particular symptoms to watch for include:

-          Recurrent arthritis or lameness lasting 3-4 days or more (Lyme Disease)

-          Reluctance to move; stiff, painful gait; swollen joints (Lyme Disease, Canine Ehrlichiosis, Canine Anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever)

-          Fever, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes (Lyme Disease, Canine Ehrlichiosis, Canine Anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever)

-          Lethargy and/or Depression (Canine Ehrlichiosis, Canine Anaplasmosis)

-          Loss of appetite (Canine Ehrlichiosis, Canine Anaplasmosis)

-          Spontaneous nosebleeds (Canine Ehrlichiosis)

-          Bruising on gums and belly (Canine Ehrlichiosis)

-          Neurological signs like seizures and neck pain (Canine Anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever)

-          Vomiting and diarrhea (Canine Anaplasmosis)

-          Skin Lesions (Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever)

If your pet shows any of these symptoms, schedule a vet appointment ASAP, and bring the dead tick if possible. Being able to identify the tick will help the vet narrow down what disease, if any, your dog may have contracted.

We hope the prevention information we provided is useful to you, and that you don’t have to use the tick removal or symptoms guides! From all of us at DogWatch Hidden Fences, here’s wishing you and your furry friends a happy and tick-free spring and summer!

Photo credits:

1) Dariusz Majgier via CutCaster

2) Mark Robinson via Flickr(R)

3) Jeridu via iStockphoto(R)

Tagged with: cats, dog emergencies, dog health, dog videos, fleas, health topics, healthcare, summer, ticks
Posted in Dog Grooming, Dog Healthcare

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Summer + rainy season = Ticks -- What you should know about tick disease in dogs

What a summer! We’re having East Coast weather – humidity, rain, hot, muggy. Besides the swamp cooler being useless, what else do we need to think about? We’ve already had the plague here – now we need to think out tick diseases. The wildlife is carrying it – but we all moved here to be around wildlife. So here’s the scoop – humans and pets can get tick diseases and here’s what you should watch for:

There are 4 major tick diseases which affects dogs in the US: Lyme disease, Rocky mountain spotted fewer, ehrlichiosis and babesiosis.

Lyme disease: Lyme disease, named after the town of Lyme, CT, is carried by the black-legged deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) in the East and in the West by Ixodes pacificus or Ixodes neotomae. Larvae of the deer tick feed on mice, nymphs on mice and small mammals and the adult prefers to feed on deer, so those are the primary hosts at each stage of the tick’s life. Lyme is endemic in the Northeast and steadily growing in the Midwest and in California. The South and Southwest has a very low (1%) infestation rate.

Symptoms in dogs are generally present with signs of arthritis in the joints closest to the tick bites. Two to five months after being bitten, the lameness that is the primary indicator of possible Lyme disease can come on suddenly and severely; other times it comes on more gradually. You may see shifting lameness where the dog favors one leg, then another. Lameness may come and go, sometimes for weeks at a time. The dog may go off his food. Neurological damage is possible, seizures and changes in temperament, from dullness to extreme of aggression, have been reported in dogs with Lyme. There is no rash as it occurs in humans. Normally, Lyme is crippling but it doesn’t kill and the most common signs of the disease are almost always hidden. Lately, veterinarians reported signs of kidney and neurological problems with dogs infected with lyme disease.

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fewer: Despite its name, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is found mainly in the Eastern US and usually makes itself known in spring and summer (March to October) but cases of human RMSF have been reported in almost every state, Canada, South America and Mexico.
Dogs most at risk are young, generally large breeds(german shepards and dobermans especially) that spend a lot of time outdoors. Dogs over 3 or 4 years old aren’t as likely to get RMSF, possibly having acquired an immunity.
The onset of the disease is rapid. Four or five days after being bitten, the dog will become feverish (up to 105 degrees). Symptoms may include depression, loss of appetite, swollen lymph nodes, bruising on the skin or gums, tiny hemorrhages under the skin, muscle pain, retinal hemorrage, swollen or painful joints. A staggering gait, difficulty keeping his balance, is the dog’s most common neurological sign. Seizures are possible. A decrease in the platelets responsible for clotting (thrombocytopenia), is the most consistent finding in blood tests.
If left untreated, RMSF either kills quickly (the disease runs its course in approximately two weeks) or the dog gets over it and is then immune. Symptoms may range from slight through severe to fatal.
It takes two to three weeks for antibodies to be detectable but then their numbers rise sharply for several weeks before they level off and begin a long, slow, gradual decline over many months. Obviously the timeline is very tight here, so, since research indicates that death from untreated RMSF is more common than previously thought, a dog that appears to have it should be treated immediately without waiting for test results to come back.

Ehrlichiosis — Ehrlichiosis (E. Canis) has three stages. The acute stage is brief and the symptoms are easily missed; it may appear as if the dog has a mild and passing viral infection: snotty nose, diarrhea, fever, a general lack of his usual oomph. In a stoic dog especially, a change in behavior may be the only alert he gives you to get him to the vet.
It’s in this stage that the outlook for a cure is best. Very early on, however, testing is probably useless; until ten days to two weeks after infection, the immune system will not have had time to make sufficient antibodies for the tests to detect.
The acute stage over, the disease passes into the subclinical stage. This simply means a stage in which no symptoms are present. Cure, or at the very least, containment of the disease so that it cannot progress, is still a good possibility in this stage, which may last for years.
If the disease progresses to chronic, the outlook is grave, particularly in E. risticii and E. canis. Symptoms show up with a vengeance at this point. There are a lot of symptoms and they are easily mistaken for other diseases: intermittent fever or loss of appetite lethargy, total loss of appetite, gradual loss of body condition (esp. along the spine and around the eyes), viral tumors on the face/mouth/muzzle, hemorrhaging even when the blood count looks normal, clotting problems, low or high calcium levels, seizures, muscle wasting, skin infections, neurological signs, diarrhea, low platelet count, urine too alkaline, vomiting, hyper-reflective eyes, low white blood cell count, bleeding from nose or eyes, signs of arthritis, pneumonia, cough, kidney failure, increased thirst and urination, incoordination, neck or back pain, bleeding under the skin or a rash, swelling of the legs or joints, enlarged lymph nodes, irreversible bone marrow suppression.

Babesiosis — Babesiosis is a disease of the red blood cells and results in varying degrees of hemolytic anemia (essentially destruction of the RBCs that carry oxygen to the blood). It seems to hit greyhounds extremely hard but any dog that contracts it may become severely ill. It can come on sharply (acute) or violently (peracute) though neither of these stages is common in the US…or perhaps the disease simply isn’t often recognized for what it is in either of these stages. It’s generally found in the subclinical stage, where there are no apparent symptoms, or the chronic stage in which the disease is well-entrenched and symptoms are obvious .
The brown dog tick, is the usual culprit in the transmission of babesiosis; however, transmission has also occurred by direct, blood to blood transfer in fighting dogs, and by the transfusion of infected blood. Infected bitches have been known to pass the disease to pups in the womb.
In the United States, Babesiosis canis shows up mostly in the South but it does occur in other areas.. Babesiosis gibsoni is found all over the country but most often appears in pit bull terriers.
The dogs most at risk are those brought into an endemic area. These dogs are prone to severe infection. Evidently, those that are born in an area where babesiosis is prevalent get the infection while they’re still protected by the colostrum in the mother’s milk and, as a result, become immune carriers.
Clinical signs include fever that comes and goes, red or orange-colored urine, loss of appetite and the dog becomes too thin, his bones are more prominent, his coat is dull and there is at least some loss of muscle mass.
Because there is a foreign invader in the red blood cells, the dog’s immune system will start to destroy them, adding to the destruction the babesia are causing. A drop in the platelets which aid in blood clotting can make things even worse; this is especially a problem in B. gibsoni. As if that weren’t enough, the immune system may begin destroying uninfected RBCs as well. Half of all dogs with babesiosis will need transfusion. Severe inflammation is common and localized inflammation of the central nervous system can occur.

Testing: In order to make a diagnosis, one of the first things a vet will do is run a Complete Blood Count. A CBC can be very helpful, showing up things like reduced platelets or an increase or decrease in white blood cells. However, it’s important to remember that a normal CBC does not mean that a dog is free of a tick-borne disease. The CBC alone is not enough to rule them out. In fact, a negative titer on an IFA or ELISA test is not enough. Tests are only part of a diagnosis.

Treatments: A semisynthetic tetracycline, doxycycline is the drug of choice for Ehrlichiosis, Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. It is an antibiotic. All antibiotics destroy or inhibit bacteria and don’t differentiate “good” from “bad”; they wipe out beneficial bacteria in the dog’s gut right along with the disease-causing organisms. It’s a wise idea, then, to give the dog probiotics as long as he’s taking doxycycline and for several weeks afterward to avoid the gastrointestinal problems that can develop if he’s left without this help for eight weeks or more.

Tick Removal: The Right Way to Remove a Tick
Use a tool specifically made for removing ticks, a pair of sharp tweezers (not blunt ones) or a small pair of curved forceps.
Grab the tick right behind the head, i.e., as close to the skin as you can get, and PULL SLOWLY – STRAIGHT OUT. Don’t twist the tick, it isn’t made to unscrew. The tick’s hypostome, the part that penetrates the dog, has barbs like fishhooks, so slow, easy and straight out is the way you want to go. Do not pull out ticks with your bare hands, you are putting yourself in risk to contract the disease!

Prevention: There are no natural prevention which helps 100% against ticks. In mildly infested areas, you can try natural tick collars or sprays available in your local health food store. In heavily infested areas you need chemical based tick prevention, such as tick collars, sprays or spot-on preventatives such as Frontline. please always consult with your veterinarian about the safest and most affective prevention in your area.

Keep watchful, get things checked out if you have any concerns. These things are treatable if you tend to it early.