Keeping pets safe is the priority of all pet owners, especially dogs, from tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease. Lyme disease is an increasingly common disease that is caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. A dog can get it from a tick bite.
“What happens is this deer tick will bite a deer or other large mammal that potentially has the Borrelia burgdorferi or the Lyme bacteria in it,” said Dr. Brent Lakia, practice owner at Vale Park Animal Hospital. “Then it will mature into an adult before it bites our dogs and potentially people and transmits the disease to a person.”
Luckily, only 5-10% of infected dogs will get sick. Vale Park Animal Hospital checks for the disease in yearly tests.
“It can cause lameness or arthritis in dogs,” said Dr. Lakia. “They often call it shifting leg lameness. It can also cause some problems with the kidneys in what's called Lyme nephritis. This is where protein can get into the urine stream, which can be a problem. By and large, the lameness is the biggest thing we normally see. We test for it every year when we do our heartworm test. It's not uncommon that we will get a positive test. Thankfully only 5-10% of infected dogs will actually get sick. Most dogs are very healthy, and they actually don't show signs from being infected by this bacteria. That's good news.”
The dogs will show symptoms within five months after they get bit by a tick.
“They start showing clinical signs typically within two to five months after they get bit by the tick,” said Dr. Lakia. “Two to five months after the bite, you start seeing shifting leg lameness or lameness in general.”
The disease was named Lyme because it was discovered in Lyme, Connecticut.
“It was initially found in the Northeast, and historically, we thought it was in the Northeast in the Adirondacks, Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Lakia. “It has slowly been found as we've moved west. Certainly, our upper Midwest climate is very similar to the Northeast, so we're definitely seeing it. We've got a lot of woodlands, tall grasses, prairies, and things of that nature where ticks love to go. As more pets are moving between states, you're basically getting the spread across all the geographic areas. Once we discovered the disease, we started looking for it.”
Vale Park Animal Hospital also tests for other tick diseases such as anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is also another one of the tick borne diseases that the hospital sees.
Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to Lyme or any other tick borne diseases.
“That's probably the biggest take home point,” Dr. Lakia said. “Flea prevention will oftentimes have tick prevention in it. Check a dog over for ticks if you go into heavy grass areas, heavy wooded areas, and areas where ticks tend to live. Remove the ticks that you may find both on your dog, and yourself. Those are all things that I think are pretty important.”
For more information about Vale Park Animal Hospital, visit its website at valeparkah.com.