Tackling Ticks: A Vet's Perspective on Prevention and Treatment
Join Dr. Sugerman and Dr. Z as they delve into the world of tick-borne diseases in pets. From diagnosis to treatment, they cover it all—sharing their expertise on recognizing symptoms, the importance of prompt intervention, and effective prevention strategies. Get ready to equip yourself with essential knowledge to keep your pets safe from these tiny yet formidable foes.
What You’ll Learn:
Introduction to Tick-Borne Diseases:
Dr. Sugerman and Dr. Z discuss the prevalence and significance of tick-borne diseases in pets.
Diagnostic Challenges:
Exploring the difficulties in diagnosing tick-borne diseases, especially when symptoms are non-specific.
Treatment Protocols:
Highlighting the use of antibiotics, with a focus on Doxycycline, for effective treatment.
Addressing the importance of early intervention and potential complications if left untreated.
Tick Removal Techniques:
Emphasizing the importance of swift tick removal using tweezers and a steady, straight pull.
Warning against twisting, as it may leave tick mouthparts in the skin.
Preventive Measures:
Advocating for year-round tick prevention, including the use of isoxazoline-based medications.
Offering practical tips such as keeping yards groomed, reducing rodent populations, and using parasite preventatives.
Lyme Disease Vaccine:
Mentioning the availability of the Lyme vaccine in endemic areas.
Flea and Tick Control Products:
Comparing prescription options (e.g., Simparica Trio, Nexgard Plus) with over-the-counter products (e.g., Frontline, Advantage).
Advising against non-Seresto flea collars due to ineffectiveness and potential toxicity.
Year-Round Prevention:
Stressing the importance of year-round parasite prevention for both fleas and ticks.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"So in a nutshell, I recommend year-round parasite prevention and choosing one that has an isoxazoline in it is gonna be your best bet.” - Dr. Xenia Zawadzkas
"If I see a pet come in with a store-bought non-Seresto flea collar, I take it off and I throw it in the trash. It doesn't work. It can be harmful. So just stop." - Dr. Xenia Zawadzkas
Resources From This Episode:
Center for Disease Control (CDC) Tick Page
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Read The Transcript:
Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
Hi everybody. Welcome back to Dr. Sugerman. Thank you for joining us on Vetsplanation again. I'm [00:01:00] here again with Dr. Z. Thank you again so much for coming on. We really enjoyed your presentation this last week.
Dr. Z: So glad.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So I'm excited to hear more about like ticks now as well.
Dr. Z: Yes. Ticks. Let's do it.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes. All right.
Dr. Z: Another fascinating parasite.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes. Yes. And so many of them. All right. So what, what is a tick?
Dr. Z: Great. So I would go through the classification of ticks. They are considered arachnids or arthropods, and they have jointed legs, just like spiders and mites. They're also in that classification, so they're not an insect.
They're actually more like a spider. There are hard ticks, which is mostly what we're talking about. They're in the classification Ixodidae, I X O. And then there's soft ticks as well, which I was interested to learn a little bit about when I was researching this. They're in the family Argus, Argasidae , if I say it. I don't know.
Dr. Sugerman: Close enough. Yeah. I don't know if that's correct. So you're, I'm sure you're good.
Dr. Z: Sounds good. [00:02:00] Soft ticks I don't know much about. They're not as parasitic for our cats and dogs and people. Although. I did hear about some diseases that people can get from soft ticks, but we're not going to go into it.
We're just talking about the hard ones. Ticks like fleas are very old ancient creatures. They around 100 million years old seems to be and they've also been found in fossils and
Dr. Sugerman: On the mammoths?
Dr. Z: Not on the mammoths, I didn't read about that, that was fleas. Maybe they are though, I just have to look it up.
But they saw them in the amber just like the fleas and, and so amber has trapped ticks and other insects and they've been dated all the way back to the cretaceous period, so about a hundred million years or so. They are also parasitic in blood feeding, they can't live without hosts. And it's interesting because let's talk about their life cycle.
They have to have a blood meal on every stage of their life cycle before they can move on to the next life stage.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, interesting.
Dr. Z: Yeah. They start out as an egg, and then the, the larva hatches out and [00:03:00] unlike insects where it looks like a worm, their larva looks immediately like a tick. Like it's a miniature baby, baby, baby, very tiny, like the size of a poppy seed or smaller.
And poppy seeds are black, but sometimes these baby larva ticks are like light gray, tan, really hard to see. And they, interestingly, have only six legs, like, when they're larvae. Just like an insect, which has six legs. But then when they molt into their nymph stage, they, they get the eight legs.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay.
Dr. Z: Like a spider.
Dr. Sugerman: They grow up and just become, just get two more legs.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Yeah.
They're like, let's get two more, why not? So it goes egg, larva, with six legs, and then nymph, eight legs, and then adult. So they have one more molt into an adult. Which also has eight legs. So if you're curious, you could count and see if it's a nymph or a larva. But I don't think you'll be able to see the larva anyway, because they're so tiny. And sometimes they have [00:04:00] only one host that they always feed on in every cycle. But most of the time it's two or even three different hosts that they're eating during these life stages.
And the life cycle can last anywhere from two to three years, depending on the species of tick. But each stage of life, they, they can survive for extended periods, like if conditions are right. Sometimes for months to years, they can just stay in that nymph stage or stay in that larval stage.
So it could be many years before an individual tick goes through its life cycle. Yeah, yeah, if all goes well, it's two to three years and then they die, but yeah, it can be much longer. They can live a long time. Yeah. Eight to 10 years. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. And again, each life stage needs a blood meal.
So that tiny little larva with six legs has to eat a blood meal before it can turn into a nymph. And then once they are an adult, they, they breed and the female, very interestingly, has to get engorged with blood. It's called feeding to repletion, which is [00:05:00] gross, but once they can't drink any more blood, they get huge.
They get I don't know how many times.
Dr. Sugerman: They get gigantic, yeah.
Dr. Z: Yeah, like a half inch long, maybe, by the time they are too full to eat anymore, and then that's when they finally drop off the host. And they lay eggs, the females do, for like the brown dog tick, for example, will lay 4,000 to 6,000 / 7,000 eggs.
Dr. Sugerman: At a time?
Dr. Z: Yeah. She just her whole body just explodes with her eggs. And then they die. Like the females die after that. That's the end of the life cycle. But the soft ticks, interestingly, they don't die after they lay eggs. They can have four or five batches through it all again.
Eat again and lay eggs again for. Yeah, they keep going.
Dr. Sugerman: Luckily they don't. We don't have to deal with them too much.
Dr. Z: Thankfully, yes.
Their anatomy is cool. Their heads and their chest and their abdomen are all fused together unlike other arachnids. There's just one big lump.
And then they just have these big legs [00:06:00] that come out and each leg has seven segments. They're creepy. So there are lots of little joints, and at the very end they have these claws that are like sensors. They're crazy sensors. They sense all kinds of things. Just on the front ones, and they detect temperature and like air current changes.
They can smell, like odors and stuff, and they can detect carbon dioxide, just like fleas. Vibrations, they can feel that. Moisture, they can detect if it's wet or not, humidity. And they can even see light through these little sensors on their legs.
Dr. Sugerman: That's crazy.
Dr. Z: Pretty cool.
Dr. Sugerman: Imagine like your fingers, just one finger being able to do that.
Dr. Z: Yeah. It's like on the tip of our finger would be an eyeball, an ear, a nose, and a mouth.
Dr. Sugerman: And a CO2 sensor.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Yeah. Plus. Yeah. So they're pretty cool little buggers and they do what's called questing behavior, which is really fun to talk about. That's the adults or the nymph larvae... [00:07:00] adults, they all try and quest to find their, their host.
So they crawl up onto a blade of grass or a leaf or something. And they hold on to the tip of it with their back legs, like two or three pairs of their back legs. And then their front legs are, have the sensors, right? And they're just waving above their heads, just waving around. And then, like if somebody brushes by, they start waving like frantically.
There's videos of it. And then as soon as something brushes by, they stick on real fast, and then they're super fast, and they like, crawl right onto the, the body of the host.
Dr. Sugerman: Who volunteered for that?
I'm gonna walk next to this tick.
Dr. Z: There's a video of a finger, like the, the tick, the questing, and then the finger, and as soon as the finger gets close, it's frantically waving, and then, and then it catches the finger and crawls onto the finger.
It's probably on YouTube, I don't know.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm going to have to look this up now, yup.
Dr. Z: Once they're on, they wander up until they find their favorite place on the body. They somehow know [00:08:00] where to go. Brown dog ticks, for example, they really like the ears of the dogs. It's safe in there. It's dark.
Dr. Sugerman: Like inside the ear, not on the outside, the inside of the ear.
Dr. Z: Yeah, the inner flap. Not down in the ear canal. But like on the inside skin of the ear. Yeah. And so there's pictures of dogs with a bunch of dog ticks and you open their ear and it's just covered with bodies of fat female dog ticks. Super gross. Yep. And so once they feed, they cut the skin and then they spit out they have really crazy saliva with all kinds of properties.
And the saliva is got a numbing agent in it, so you can't really feel that they bit you. And then they have this crazy feeding tube that comes out of their face. It's, it's just it's like a tube that shoves up into the hole that they cut. And it's got barbs on it. Some species have barbs on them that are backwards.
Like an arrowhead. So they'll stick in there. And then they spit out a cement, like a glue, to solidify and [00:09:00] stick it on there so it's not going anywhere.
And then they spit out like a blood thinner, too. And so it keeps the blood from clotting under where they've attached. And so it just keeps flowing so they can keep sucking it up.
And some ticks are quick about doing all of that, like 10 minutes, but other ones it takes them like a couple hours to get all set up, and stuck, and blood thinning and all of that. But once they're on there, they, that's their main goal is to just suck, suck, suck.
Ticks will suck blood for several days. And that's actually when the pathogens are ingested by the host. If the host has some sort of bacteria, the tick will suck it up in one life stage and then carry it to the next host and give it to them on the next life stage.
So yeah, it's when they're hooked up and suckin blood for those days that those pathogens are moved back and forth. Most of the time, luckily, they have to be feeding for at least 24 hours for that pathogen to be transmitted.[00:10:00] If we can kill them before that, then we don't usually get the nasty diseases that they can give us.
After their feeding is complete, like we talked about before, the, the big fat bloody females will drop off finally and then lay their eggs. Or if it was the nymph stage, they will molt, into the adult, or the larva will molt into the nymph and keep going. Yeah. Yeah. I have lots of more fun facts.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes, I want to hear about these fun facts. I was reading some of them.
Dr. Z: Ticks are hardy. They're hard to kill in general. They have been shown to survive the washing machine. If you have a tick on your clothes and you're like, eh, I'll just throw it in the washer. They live through that, even the hot cycle, yeah.
They can live in a vacuum. Somebody studied this, like with no air for half an hour before they die. So they don't have to breathe for half an hour. So they could be out in space for a bit too. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: Space ticks.
Dr. Z: They don't need a helmet, they can live in drought, desert areas, without [00:11:00] feeding for four to nine months.
And they have, I was talking about all the cool things they have in their spit. There's another cool thing, they can secrete like a special saliva that attracts fluid out of the air. I don't know how that works, but like it brings water to them, aerosolized, and then they can drink that and survive for four to nine months.
That's crazy. So the dry doesn't really bug them too much. They can live in freezing zero degrees for two hours before they freeze to death. And then they can live in twenty degrees, so just like a really cold winter for two weeks before dying. They've been found in Antarctica, and they feed on penguins.
Dr. Sugerman: They have? Oh my gosh.
Dr. Z: Yeah, they feed on the penguins there. There's a penguin tick. In Antarctica.
Dr. Sugerman: I had no idea.
Dr. Z: Yeah, I didn't either. It's fun. But usually they feed on mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. I wasn't aware that they fed on the reptiles and amphibians, but they do. [00:12:00] And then, if you find a tick on your dog or cat, you can send them in to Oklahoma State University if you're interested.
Just go to showmeyourticks. com That's T I C K S or, and I think We'll switch you over to showusyourticks.org, which is the real website, but either one will work. They have a submission form and you can fill it out. You do have to submit the tick in like a plastic container that will close, and then a plastic bag with the form.
And they're just trying to do research and figure out how many types of ticks are throughout the U.S.
Dr. Sugerman: Where they're found.
Dr. Z: Where they're found. What kind. And just help document that. Because how many ticks go undiagnosed, or like unidentified?
So it's just a way to help figure out ticks if you want to, if you're interested and you pull a tick off your dog, send it in.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice.
Nice. I love the website. So I know you've talked so far about the brown dog tick. What other types of ticks are there? [00:13:00]
Dr. Z: Yes. There's so many types. I think just for to make things easy for us, let's just focus on the ones that we see here in our neck of the woods the northwest.
So the one of the big ones that we worry about is the, actually the western black legged tick, which is Ixodes pacificus. It's different than the Ixodes scapularis, which is over on the east coast but we have our very own Ixodes, and
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, aren't we lucky?
Dr. Z: Yes. It's here and now. It's, it's been documented.
Even here, right here in our hometown, Pierce County, there was an established infection, er, population. determined by the CDC. And they are active in the cold months. Just like I was saying, these are the ones that can survive in freezing temperatures and it doesn't freeze here very often. As soon as it thaws, they're out and about again. These ones carry Lyme disease and Anaplasma. That's why we see those diseases here. There's also the Dermacentor tick or the Rocky [00:14:00] Mountain Wood tick but that's on the eastern Washington and Oregon area, so over the mountain where it's drier so if you go to Leavenworth or Washington State,
Dr. Sugerman: Spokane.
Dr. Z: Yeah, then you need to be worrying about those types of ticks.
They spread Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, tularemia, and Colorado Tick Fever, just in case you were wondering. Yeah, yeah. Although we don't see it very often here. I think those types of ticks actually span all along the Rocky Mountains. Which kind of start in New Mexico and go all the way up to Canada, they have a long path of being infecting people, but it seems like we don't see those diseases too much, but they're, that's what they can carry. And then the brown dog tick, like I was talking about earlier, they're, they're everywhere in the U. S. They're quite an amazing tick. They, they're one of the few ones that are able to live happily inside homes.
Most of the other ones are outdoors and they can't like, they don't like being in the house. But brown dog ticks will set up in a [00:15:00] wall or whatever and...
Dr. Sugerman: Inside the wall.
Dr. Z: Yeah There's pictures And they're all over the U.S. their big disease that they spread is Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But that's mostly in the southern U.S. so they don't seem to spread it as much to us thankfully.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, good.
So you said brown dog chick prefers to be in the house then?
Dr. Z: Yes. I would say it's happy anywhere, but they're like one of the only ones that can infest a house. Like cockroaches. They can get inside the walls and be inside.
The other ones don't typically do that. They're more outside.
Dr. Sugerman: Where do you normally find them? Like around tree areas, bushes? Like what do they prefer?
Dr. Z: Good question. Yeah. Along trails would be the biggest, common area to find them, but there's always exceptions.
So the young life stages are usually on the small mammal hosts, like those little larvas. They're tiny and so they, they catch on to like rodents, mice [00:16:00] and stuff. And they're lower to the ground.
Lizards and birds sometimes are down, and that's where they can catch those guys. So anywhere there's a lot of that kind of wildlife, especially the rodents. There can be more ticks around. As the ticks get bigger, they seek larger hosts like deer, raccoons, possums There's cattle too.
There's one tick that really likes livestock that came over from Asia it's called the Asian long horned tick, and it's I just have to talk about it real quick. Cause it's so scary Even though we don't have it here This tick is really fast. It runs really fast And it really just is fascinating because it doesn't have to mate to lay eggs So it can reproduce asexually.
And so it's spreading really fast. And they're finding it on livestock all over the east coast right now. I think maybe it'll work its way over here eventually.
Dr. Sugerman: I'm sure it will. Exactly.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Anyway but neighborhoods that have a lot of deer or houses that are up against a forest, which [00:17:00] is, we're always moving into cutting down trees and then putting houses there.
That's probably going to be more ticky area than really urban places. But they're in raccoons, they're in cities, they are everywhere and they can carry ticks and fleas and bring them to us.
Dr. Sugerman: So do we find them more in the city or more in like the rural areas?
Dr. Z: I would say more rural yeah, other than the brown dog ticks which can get into a house, but neighborhoods that are up against the forest and I would say if you're going on hikes a lot with your dogs, that's where there's a lot of deer and wildlife. That's probably more where you're going to find ticks.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. And are ticks harmful then?
Dr. Z: Oh yes, yeah. They spread disease. Which I've alluded to already. That's the main concern. Besides sucking our blood, which is icky and gross. And being secretive about it. Like they'll get in your armpit or something, and you don't see it for a day.
The back of your knee or something. And some, some really like your head, so they'll get up under your hair.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Nope.
I'm just gonna shave my head now. That's what's gonna [00:18:00] happen.
Dr. Z: So I think that is harmful. It's mentally harmful for me. But they also spread disease not just to people, but to dogs.
And sometimes cats will even get sick with tick borne diseases. In our area, the big one is Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to some extent, and rare cases of Tularemia. Just based on the ticks that we see here, and those are the diseases they can carry.
But there's other ones, you've probably heard of Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, Babesiosis. There's rare ones too, like Heartland Bourbon Virus.
Dr. Sugerman: I've never heard of it.
Dr. Z: I haven't either, but it's on the CDC website. The CDC, by the way, is a wonderful resource for all, all things tick. You can see maps and learn about their life cycle more and all of it there. So just go to their website.
It's really great. I have to name a couple other diseases, though, that they can spread. Colorado tick fever is one. Powassan virus, Rickettsiosis, and there's simply hard tick relapsing fever, [00:19:00] tick borne relapsing fever. Seems pretty generic names, but they're actually diseases we have figured out are tick borne.
All of these diseases, they have the same sort of symptoms, plus or minus. Fever is a big one. Rashes maybe. The Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is really big on the rash, like all over nasty rash. And it can get complicated and need amputations in some really severe cases. Low platelets is a big one that we'll see on our dogs especially.
Platelets help us clot our blood for those that don't know so if we don't have enough platelets then we can just spontaneously start bleeding and hemorrhaging into any area of our body. And it's life threatening you can imagine. If we don't have enough platelets. So that's one of the big things that brings dogs here on emergency I think.
If that goes untreated there can be more chronic problems to like arthritis issues, heart issues, there's even reports of uveitis in the eyes and formation behind the eyes and, and [00:20:00] CNS or central nervous system problems, seizures and respiratory failure. It's a wide gambit of problems from these nasty pathogens.
Yeah. Some kids, if they get, get it real bad, they can get meningoencephalitis too and, seizures and death from that. It can also eventually trigger DIC or disseminated intra
Dr. Sugerman: intravascular
Dr. Z: vascular, coagulopathy. Or death is coming.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes, that's what we call it. Death is coming. Exactly.
Dr. Z: Yes. Have you done an episode on that?
Dr. Sugerman: I haven't done that one yet. I keep saying I'm gonna do it. It's just so extensive. But it's on the list. It's on the list of ones to do.
Dr. Z: If you do, you have to mention that ticks can cause it.
Dr. Sugerman: I will do that.
Dr. Z: So it's bad, yeah. It can be really bad. Thankfully, though, these are usually treatable with antibiotics, and if it's treated early, then all of these, they can get better.
We can recover from these things. It's when you don't treat early that we run into all these horrible problems or delayed onset issues. [00:21:00] Like in people, they'll get, with Lyme disease, they can end up with heart problems, chronic arthritic problems, nerve issues, fatigue, relapsing joint pain. It just goes on and on.
Oh, it also can end up getting in the kidneys and cause a nephritis, an inflamed kidney. And they can end up with chronic kidney disease too. Yeah. And sometimes that happens in dogs when they're not treated.
Dr. Sugerman: That's crazy. I don't think I've ever looked for Lyme disease in a dog with kidney failure.
Dr. Z: Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: That's a good thing to look for next time.
Dr. Z: I think it's just so generally rare here that we're not really, maybe we're missing it because we're not really looking for it.
Dr. Sugerman: So then. You mentioned with Lyme disease and stuff, and I mentioned a little bit, do we have ways of testing for these diseases?
Dr. Z: Ah, yes.
Very good blood tests, thankfully. We have really good blood tests now that are called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, I believe. It's some fancy lab test that can actually look for the pathogens like what we call the antigen, are parts of the pathogen that we [00:22:00] can identify, like the actual presence of that pathogen.
Sometimes they detect only the antibody, which is the body's immune reaction to it. We can see if they've actually been exposed or have an immunity to it. It's not quite as helpful in my opinion as the antigen test because that tells me it's actually there. Versus, oh they did have it at one point.
But yeah, there's lots of blood tests for that. The 4DX we have in house, we run it quickly. It looks for, I think, Ehrlichia, Lyme...
Dr. Sugerman: Anaplasma.
Dr. Z: Anaplasma and Heartworm is in there too. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Those are actually antibodies. So if we're really wondering, there is like these giant tick panels that we can send out to the lab and they look for all of them, like not all of them, but most of them.
Dr. Sugerman: A good, a good majority.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Many of them. There's always a chance that there's new ones out there, we just don't know. Cause, a lot of animals come in, they get sick and they test negative for everything, but they have all the same symptoms. And I'm like maybe it's a new tick-borne disease or some other problem that we just don't know to test for it 'cause we don't know what it is.
Dr. Sugerman: Right. [00:23:00]
Dr. Z: So, but yeah, they can be helpful. I think if there's a history of a tick bite too, then we can presume like if they have low platelets and a history of a tick bite. Oh yeah let's give them Doxycycline. Which brings us to the next question.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes. Yeah so then that's pretty much what we do. So what are your treatments if they do come up as being positive for one of these?
Dr. Z: Yeah so antibiotics, the big one is Doxycycline is thankfully very effective against pretty much all of these tick borne diseases. Sometimes they just needed a couple weeks, sometimes like a whole month of it. Amoxicillin can also work and is sometimes indicated, but it seems like doxycycline is the better go-to for it.
Dr. Sugerman: Which you'll pretty much see with any of our dogs that have low platelets. We essentially put all of them on doxycycline since we can't be for sure. We don't know 100 percent for sure that they have a tick-born disease or not.
Dr. Z: I think it's wise to do that because again, if we don't treat it early there can be really bad complications if we leave it there . The first thing So, better to be safe I think and go ahead and treat the tick. If you have a suspicion.
Dr. Sugerman: [00:24:00] Right.
Dr. Z: Um, if they're really sick, like they come to you on ER and they're bleeding out they might need blood transfusions to help cope with the platelets being too low.
And then if, it can be very painful, like Lyme disease, especially if it causes that, it's like almost like an autoimmune reaction in their joints. They have really swollen joints too, you can actually see swelling on their knees and their elbows and things. It's painful. Give them pain meds, anti inflammatories, it helps them get through it as, as you treat.
But once you. And then we also have antibiotics and the pathogen goes down, usually that is reversible. They don't hopefully have too much lasting effect from it.
Dr. Sugerman: Now that we've kind of talked about the treatment and stuff, how do we prevent ticks?
Dr. Z: Great. Well first, if you see a tick remove it as quick as possible. Don't just let it sit there. There's all kinds of fancy tools for tick removals, but you can just do it with tweezers.
You don't need anything fancy. You just want to try and grab as close as you can to the skin. And just slowly and gradually pull it out. Constant pressure.
Dr. Sugerman: No twisting.
Dr. Z: No twisting. Just [00:25:00] straight pull. Steady pull. Otherwise, if you like twist it or break it off too quick, the mouth parts can get stuck in the skin.
Which isn't great, and it happens most of the time anyway. But, if you can't dig it out, just leave it. It'll work its way out with time, yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: There are some that they've shown that has caused an anaphylaxis once they've done that.
Dr. Z: Oh, really?
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, it's a pretty rare thing, but they have shown if the head breaks off, it'll cause some dogs to go into anaphylaxis.
Dr. Z: Hopefully you don't break it off.
Dr. Sugerman: That's what we just have to hope every time we do it.
Dr. Z: Yeah, there's like old wives tales of like you can try and put a match on it and heat it and then it'll release, but probably not.
Dr. Sugerman: Then you're just gonna burn the dog.
Dr. Z: Yeah, and it doesn't work because they're like cemented in there.
You're not just gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna let go. Nope, you gotta pull them out, keep your yard groomed to prevent the leaf litter and the tall grass, which is where they like to quest, right? And wait around for people to walk by, or pets to walk by. So mow your lawn frequently, trim your bushes.
If you have a lot of yard debris, you want to pick that up. You don't want to leave [00:26:00] trash around. Not that you'd do that anyway, but if you have a wood pile for your wood stove or whatever, keep it neat. Keep it dry. Cover it so it doesn't get wet in there. That's where ticks like to live and hide out.
Keep a border between the woods and your home. If you do live up next to a forest, kind of make a border between the fence and your house, so that you're less likely to get on the fence and into your yard. That kind of thing. If you can reduce the amount of rodents around, is always a good thing too.
I have chickens. And I actually had a rat problem with the chickens. Because they,
Dr. Sugerman: it's very common.
Dr. Z: Yeah. They dig under, no matter how deep you put that fencing, they'll go under it and get into your coop. So the only way I found to get rid of them was to extend the hardware cloth that I... don't use chicken wire.
It's too big. The holes are too big. Mice get through that no problem, but hardware cloth has maybe one centimeter holes, they can't get through that. It's a lot harder to work with, but [00:27:00] it's worth it. And then I extended it all the way underground, so it's almost like a giant cage. And then I put dirt on top of that, so it's like a foot and a half below the dirt.
It's the hardware cloth, so the mice can't get in anymore. And that finally took care of the problem. But if you can keep rodents down, you're going to keep all these parasites down. They carry fleas too, as we talked about last time. So fleas and ticks will be less likely to be in your area if you keep those kind of pests away.
And then of course you want to put parasite preventatives on your pets. Probably the easiest thing and the most important thing, I think. We talked about the isoxazolines last time so Bravecto, Simparica, Credelio, Nexgard. Those are all great options, they kill fleas quickly. There's also over the counter and topicals as well like Frontline and Advantage and the Seresto collar, they work pretty well too. They don't kill them as quick, but they can help with killing and preventing tick bites.
Dr. Z: There's also a Lyme vaccine available, we don't have it [00:28:00] here in our hospital just cause we don't see Lyme disease that much, but like on the east coast it's, it's available. It's got like variable efficacy, a little controversy over it, but it does seem like it overall helps. And so if you're in an endemic area, if I lived over there, I would, I would probably get that vaccine for my pets.
Dr. Sugerman: Interesting.
Dr. Z: Yeah. It doesn't replace, though, the year round tick control. I think that that's probably going to work better. One side note I wrote here, Lyme disease can't be transmitted from a dog to the owner. If your dog is positive for Lyme disease, you're not going to get it from your dog. You have to be bit by the tick to get it, just to make that clear for people so they don't worry about it.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly, because definitely people will worry about that, like how it's transmitted and stuff. So yeah, I think that's great to clarify that.
Dr. Z: Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: So can you elaborate a little more on the like control products like over the counter stuff versus our prescription type?
Dr. Z: Yeah, yeah, like I said it's a little bit faster, but in general ticks are harder to kill than fleas.
So the [00:29:00] isoxazolines do work, but not as amazing as they do on fleas. They will kill them, though, generally 24 hours after they bite, before 24 hours is up. Hopefully they're not transmitting any pathogens. These are all prescription only, so Simparica Trio, which is my favorite one covers fleas, ticks, and worms all in one.
Nexgard Plus does pretty much the same thing. There's Credelio and Bravecto, and those are my favorite options for dogs. Yeah. For cats Bravecto Plus is my favorite because it does fleas and ticks and worms too, and it lasts longer. It lasts for two months, so we don't have to remember to put it on as often.
Revolution Plus is another great option for cats, but it only lasts for one month. And there's a new one called Nexgard Combo that just came out for cats that also kills tapeworms, which is nice.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice, yes, that's always good.
Dr. Z: That one also has an isoxazoline in it and will, will kill ticks quickly. The over the counter ones. So again, Advantage, frontline. They work pretty well. They [00:30:00] just take a little bit longer.
Dr. Sugerman: The Advantage just kills fleas, don't you have to get Advantix to kill them?
Dr. Z: Yes, good. Yeah. So there is Advantix too, I think they call it for dogs and it has like an added, well, imidacloprid will kill ticks to some extent, right? But they add to it a pyrethrin, I want to say flumethrin or something.
Dr. Sugerman: Something like that, yeah.
Dr. Z: Which is actually one of the lesser toxic ones to cats. So it's like in the Seresto collar for cats as well. So it's more of the natural pyrethrin, whereas the permethrins are the synthetic ones that last longer and work better actually, but they're super toxic to cats.
So that's hard to keep track. Pyrethrin versus permethrin, people don't really know the difference. All you need to do is just look at the label and see if it's okay for your cat.
Dr. Sugerman: It'll be all over like literally eight different places.
Dr. Z: They'll say dogs only. Yeah, yeah. And then check the weight too because some people like ignore that and just put like the big dog dose on their....
Dr. Sugerman: Small dog.
Dr. Z: A small dog and it or or most horribly on a cat.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes. . That's what I see the most often, [00:31:00] unfortunately.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Or they'll try to split it between the different pets and, oh, just a little bit's not gonna hurt my cat, but it does. So you always put on what's labeled, it's gonna be safer for your cat. And it, it can help with flea tick control, but they're just, in my opinion, falling out of favor. They're not working as well. They don't kill these bugs as quickly. And then they're more likely to transmit diseases. So in, in a nutshell, I recommend year round parasite prevention and choosing one that has an isoxazoline in it is gonna be your best bet.
Dr. Sugerman: And then. Besides the Seresto collar, because we already talked about that. So flea collars in general?
Dr. Z: Yeah, I only recommend the Seresto if you're going to do anything because it, it does actually work and it's safe. The other one's they don't have imidacloprid in it which is what's in the Seresto collar and in Advantage and works. They have probably some other pyron or pyrethroid in it that can be toxic to cats and probably won't kill the fleas or the ticks quickly enough. Like they will [00:32:00] kill 'em eventually, but it takes a week or something for them to die and then they've had all kinds of chance fed.
Yeah. To to feed and to eat and to lay eggs and reproduce and so it's just not worth your money. And it could be toxic. Like I said in the last one, if I see a pet come in with a store bought non-Seresto flea collar, I take it off and I throw it in the trash.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. It doesn't work.
Dr. Z: It doesn't work.
It can be harmful. So just stop.
Dr. Sugerman: And then do you recommend doing year round tick control just like we did for flea control as well.
Dr. Z: Yeah, absolutely. Just like we talked about the Ixodes pacificus tick is active in the winter months here. Yes. So it's a risk year round. If you don't want these diseases, you should prevent it year round.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.
So there are not many things that make me squirm, but ticks do 100%.
Dr. Z: Me too. Absolutely. And maggots.
Dr. Sugerman: I'm even okay with maggots.
Yeah, I'm even okay with maggots. Yeah, it's the ticks. No, can't do it. I had one time I had to do x rays on a deer as a technician. And I had its head up [00:33:00] by my head and I just saw the whole thing just covered in ticks I thought I was going to vomit.
Dr. Z: Yeah, I would have a hard time with that as well. I would be like, no, I'm not touching it.
Dr. Sugerman: I didn't know until like I had it up next to me. Terrible. Terrible.
Dr. Z: One thing. It would be good to know that that tick probably is not gonna let go and get on you.
Dr. Sugerman: It's true. Yeah. Still just like knowing they were next to me.
Dr. Z: Yeah. It's gross. They're super gross. I remember visiting my family over on the East Coast and I was on the back porch, and there was, I noticed, I was holding my baby girl, she was only like, six months old at the time, and I noticed there was a couple little ticks like running on her arm, and I just brushed them off, and I was like freaking out the whole rest of the day, like it was questing obviously, and it just got on her.
And, she didn't get bit, but I was like, God, they're here, I hate them.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Z: Creepy, creepy for sure.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes.
Alright, so I'm going to ask my question for you now. Alright, so what is your favorite podcast and [00:34:00] why?
You don't have to pick this one.
Dr. Z: I was going to say, do I have to say this one?
Dr. Sugerman: No, no, no.
Dr. Z: I really like Vetsplanation though.
Dr. Sugerman: Thank you. I appreciate that..
Dr. Z: It's going to be the This Podcast Will Kill You.
Dr. Sugerman: Yep, that's your favorite one.
Dr. Z: Yep, my favorite for sure. I don't know if I've listened to all of them, but it's pretty much my go to. I have, I have a whole bunch that I like, though.
Dr. Sugerman: I know.
I know you love podcasts. So I was wondering which one was your favorite one.
Dr. Z: Yeah, that comes to mind as number one, I think. I love it. It's a great show. They do a great job.
Dr. Sugerman: All right. Thank you again, Dr. Z. Again, I'm so happy that you came on to talk about ticks, because I don't know very much about ticks, so I was very happy to hear and actually learn all this information.
Dr. Z: You're very welcome. I'm happy to share. I hope I sent a good message to everyone to keep up the parasite prevention.
Dr. Sugerman: Parasite prevention, fleas and ticks, for sure, year round.
Dr. Z: Good bet.
Dr. Sugerman: Alright, thank you everybody again, as always, please keep your pets happy, healthy, and safe. Thank you.
Dr. Z: Bye. Thanks.
Dr. Sugerman: Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, [00:35:00] suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.com or visit the website at VetsplanationPodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.