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From early spring to late autumn, every dog walking in the park, along the streets of the city, in the forest or in the holiday village is in serious danger. You may not immediately notice it – it is not so easy to find a tiny tick on the body of a pet covered with thick hair. But it carries a huge danger for the animal.
Tick bite symptoms
The symptoms of a tick bite in a dog are quite characteristic, so every pet owner should definitely know them.
As a rule, they appear already within the first week after the bite, but in rare cases they can occur even after a few months, even in winter, despite the fact that the pet was bitten in the warm season. The animal becomes lethargic, does not want to play, reacts sluggishly to the owners – in general, it shows all the signs of apathy. The dog’s appetite worsens, over time, she refuses to eat at all, does not pay attention to her favorite treats. The animal’s temperature rises – the nose becomes hot, and if you measure the temperature (this can be done using a conventional thermometer, which must be inserted shallowly into the anus), then the normal values u39bu40bof 41 ° C jump to XNUMX – XNUMX ° C.
The dog may whine from pain in the abdomen, experience weakness in the limbs, lie down too much, refuse to walk. Another indicator is dog urine, which darkens to the color of tea leaves. The dog may experience shortness of breath, and the mucous membranes turn pale. If the pet has at least some of the symptoms, then most likely it was bitten by a tick – a carrier of babesiosis (piroplasmosis) or other infections. Harmful microorganisms are contained in the saliva of the tick and, when they enter the body of a dog, they begin to multiply in red blood cells, destroying the cells of the circulatory system (1).
And then there can be serious intoxication of the animal’s body, liver damage, as evidenced by the yellowness of the mucous membranes (2), kidneys, and metabolic disorders. A sick dog urgently needs medical care in a veterinary clinic, because without treatment, its death is almost inevitable.
First aid after a tick bite
If the owner has found a tick in a dog, but is not yet sure that the animal is infected with piroplasmosis, you should try to get the tick out of the pet’s body as soon as possible. The tick itself must be saved and taken to the laboratory for analysis to find out if it is a carrier of the infection. As a rule, such an analysis is carried out within a few days.
If the result of the analysis showed that the tick that bit the dog is a carrier of dangerous infections, then you need to carefully monitor the health of the pet. The best thing to do is take your dog to the vet for a blood test.
The very wound from which the tick was pulled out must be cauterized with iodine. And treat the dog’s hair with an anti-tick preparation: we sing, with drops. If the symptoms of infection begin to appear, then you need to give the dog plenty of water – if it refuses to drink, pour water into the mouth with a syringe (if you vomit, you can pour water with an enema – somewhere around 100 – 200 ml) and immediately take it to the veterinary clinic.
How to get a tick out of a dog
Remove the tick from the dog’s body as carefully as possible. It is best to wear rubber gloves to protect your hands. Then you need to ensure that the tick gets out of the wound as much as possible. To do this, sunflower or any other vegetable oil is dripped onto the tick and the area around the wound. It blocks the access of oxygen, and the tick is forced to stick its head out a little.
If there is no oil, you can use any alcohol solution. You need to drip on the tick several times at intervals of once a minute. Then you need to try to pull out the tick as a whole, without crushing it and not leaving its head in the wound. This will require hand tools. In pet stores, you can buy special tweezers to remove ticks in advance. If there are none, ordinary tweezers or eyebrow tweezers will do. Or the usual thick thread, which must be tied with a loop and thrown over the tick. With tweezers or a thread loop, you need to gently and slowly begin to turn the tick counterclockwise, “unscrewing” it from the wound.
If the tick could not be removed entirely, you should try to pull the head out of the wound with tweezers, in no case squeeze it out.
When to contact the veterinarian
– Each owner knows the character of his dog well and can immediately see that something is wrong with his animal. If you notice that the dog behaves quite normally, then you need to carefully monitor its behavior and condition. The dog refuses to eat, has become lethargic, lies a lot – this is an occasion to measure its temperature. If it is above the norm at 39 ° C – take the dog to the clinic, – recommends veterinarian Svetlana Pilyugina. “Better safe than sorry. Often owners bring their dogs in such a state that they have to fight for their lives. And even after being rescued, such dogs, as a rule, remain disabled, because the infection that has entered their body after a tick bite has time to cause serious damage to internal organs.
And don’t try to treat a tick-infected dog at home – the antibiotics you’ll need to treat your dog for the effects of a bite are very toxic and should only be used by a veterinarian.
How to protect your dog from ticks
Each owner must protect his dog from ticks, because prevention is much better than subsequent treatment and complications from an infection that has entered the animal’s bloodstream.
Firstly, after each walk, you should try to comb the dog – ticks sit in the animal’s fur for 2 to 6 hours before sticking to its body. By combing the coat, the owner can remove parasites that have not stuck into the dog. Then you need to carefully examine the paws, muzzle, abdomen, armpits, in order to quickly remove the tick, which has just stuck to the body of the animal. And most importantly – do not go for a walk until the animal is treated with a remedy that protects it from ticks. You need to start protecting your pet in early spring and end in late autumn.
– Now in veterinary pharmacies, many drugs are sold that can protect the dog from ticks. It can be a collar impregnated with a special compound, drops that need to be applied to the withers, sprays that can be used to treat the animal’s hair, says veterinarian Svetlana Pilyugina. – But the owners need to remember that all these drugs, firstly, do not provide 25% protection, and secondly, they can lose their properties in the heat – if the air temperature is above 3 ° C. Therefore, I recommend tablets that do not depend on environmental conditions in any way. There are quite a lot of such oral remedies, their duration is calculated from one to XNUMX months, and they are not toxic to the animal’s body. Prevention is the dog’s best defense against ticks, as owners show true devotion to their pets.
Popular questions and answers
Answered questions about the treatment and prevention of ticks in dogs veterinarian Boris Mats.
How can you treat a dog for ticks?
How often should a dog be treated for ticks?
What should I do if a dog’s head is left when a tick is removed?
Are there vaccines for tick-borne diseases in dogs?
Sources of
- Shlenkina T.M., Akimov D.Yu., Romanova E.M. / Distribution of ecological niches of the ixodofauna Canis lupus familiaris on the territory of the Ulyanovsk region // Bulletin of the Ulyanovsk State Agricultural Academy, 2016 https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/raspredelenie-ekologicheskih-nish-iksodofauny-canis-lupus-familiaris-na-territorii -ulyanovsk-oblasti
- Movsesyan S.O., Petrosyan R.A., Vardanyan M.V., Nikoghosyan M.A., Manukyan G.E. On spontaneous babesiosis in dogs, prevention and treatment measures // Theory and practice of combating parasitic diseases, 2020 https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/o-spontannom-babezioze-sobak-merah-profilaktiki-i-lecheniya