tick disease

There are four major tick borne diseases that affect the dog in the United States:

Ehrlichiosis, Babesiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease.

All, with the usual exception of Lyme disease, may be fatal unless diagnosed in time and treated aggressively.

If you cannot get a firm diagnosis and nothing you do seems to help; if you cannot and will not settle for anything as vague as "compromised immune system"; if the symptoms you see make no sense and/or the treatment your dog is given does no good, you should consider the possibility that your dog has tick disease.  Sites listed farther down the page are highly recommended to help you learn about and combat it.

Important!  Here is the treatment your dog should be given for Ehrlichiosis or Lyme disease.

Doxycycline, a semi-synthetic tetracycline, is the drug of choice, the most effective against Ehrlichiosis and Lyme.  It is given at 10 milligrams per kilogram (1 kg = 2.2 lbs.) of the dog's body weight every twelve hours for six to eight weeks.  Another way to figure this, on the basis of pounds, is 5 mg. per pound of body weight.  The result for the dog is exactly the same as doxy comes in 100 mg. tabs and the result of figuring in milligrams is usually adjusted up accordingly.  If nausea is a problem, you can divide the dose further, as long as the dog gets what he needs in any twelve hour period.

This is twice the amount recommended in the Merck Veterinary Manual and is given for a longer period of time than the VMM recommends; however, vets who deal with tick disease all the time say that the higher doses and longer administration are successful far more often in treating this disease and preventing its recurrence.

Doxy is not used to treat Babesiosis and has little to no effect on it.

Dogs with Lyme disease that cannot tolerate doxycycline may be treated with amoxicillin as an alternative;  it has no effect on Ehrlichiosis.  I have read reports of IV Rocephin being used to save dogs in extremely bad cases of neurological Lyme..

Ehrlichiosis, a Silent and Deadly Killer

Betsy Easton has generously rescued this very important article from the web archives, linked in the title above, and posted it again on her site.  Two links, one article;  we are determined not to lose it.

The Hawk's Nest

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For those of us who are not vets, which is most of us, this is the best, most comprehensive, easily understood article on the web about Ehrlichiosis.   For those who are vets, there is a foreword by Dr. Ibulaimu Kakoma, DVM, PhD, an acknowledged authority on rickettsial diseases in dogs, as well as a section on being awake to the possibility of TBD when a dog presents vague symptoms that don't seem to add up to much, or treatment for a suspected disease has little or no effect.  Since this was written in 1996, tick disease has burgeoned as a problem that is still largely overlooked and it is all the more vital that vets inform themselves about it.

Ehrlichiosis is more than E. canis.  Way too few vets seem to know much about tick-borne disease, fewer seem to realize that a dog that tests free of E. canis on the popular Snap test for heartworm, E. canis and Lyme, may still have another strain of it or another form of TBD altogether.  (Some are resistant to even considering testing for tick disease and if you run up on one of these, don't let the door hit you on the way out!  Go find a vet who will.)

If it's not E. canis, it could be equi, platys (a form that attacks the red blood cells), ewingii or risticii, though there are others, some unnamed.  And, worse luck, cross infections with more than one type of TBD are common.

My dog died of E. risticii, the only form of this awful disease that is 'not' carried by ticks.  The vector has only recently been found to be the larvae of the flukes that live on water snails.  Think of it, imagine how tiny they are.  It is believed that they may be ingested by dogs as they drink from river water, water in fields flooded or irrigated by rivers, or that these extremely small organisms may conceivably pass through the dog's skin with their deadly cargo.  There is a possibility that E. risticii, now known as Neorickettsia risticii, is also harbored in horse manure, and it has been proven that horses which ingest caddis flies infected with this rickettsial organism can come down with the disease.  The likelihood is that dogs may be infected in this way as well.

Ehrlichiosis, a Silent and Deadly Killer is the article that told me I shouldn't lose any time having my dog tested for TBD.  It is invaluable.  If you read nothing else, read this.

More links to information on Ehrlichiosis and other TBDs.

Tick Borne Ehrlichiae and Rickettsiae of Dogs

Tick FAQ:  Pam Barbe's compendium of links and facts

Hemotropic Diseases of the Dog, Cat and Horse:  Dr. Cynthia Holland, director of Protatek Reference Labs.

ProtaTek Reference Laboratory has made a specialty of these diseases and is the lab most used by vets on Tick List.  Turn-around time on blood samples sent overnight for tick panels is between 24-48 hours, usually the former, and Dr. Cynthia Holland, PhD, the director, has been very helpful about discussing the results with the vets.  The usual panel consists of IFA tests for E. canis, Babesia canis, Rickettsia rickettsii (Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever) and Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease).  Arrangements can be made to test for the less common forms of TBD as well as Valley Fever.

Tick Diseases:  an Overview

Ehrlichiosis - Antech Diagnostics

Update on Ehrlichiosis - Antech Diagnostics.  This is a .pdf file.

Imizol:  Imizol (Imidocarb diproprionate) is the drug of choice for Babesiosis and is used off-label for knocking out stubborn cases of Ehrlichiosis, as well.  This is a link to the product label on Schering-Plough's website.  Read it carefully.  If you use it, be sure to give your dog some form of liver support.

Bartonellosis - Antech Diagnostics

Bartonellosis - Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt 2001 - World Small Animal Veterinary Congress

AIHA, IMHA and ITP:  Auto-Immune Hemolytic Anemia, Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia and Immune-mediated Thrombocytopenia are often concurrent with tick disease, making the treatment that much harder and more dangerous.

Lyme Disease:  Allen Schoen, DVM

Lyme Borrelliosis in Dogs:  R.K. Straubinger, DVM  An excellent, detailed report on Lyme disease.

Signs of Tick Disease in Dogs:  Cornell University's "Consultant Service".  Select "Search by Diagnosis" and type in the name of the disease for a fairly complete list of the signs you might possibly see if a dog is infected with tick disease.  For ehrlichiosis risticii, type in "neorickettsia risticii", the name by which it is now known.

The western blot:  the definitive test, at present, for distinguishing Lyme disease from "vaccine induced Lyme".

Advanced Topics in Lyme Disease:  Diagnostic Hints and Treatment Guidelines for Lyme and Other Tick Borne Illnesses by Dr. Joseph Burrascano.  This page is unusual in that it is concerned with Lyme disease in humans, yet what Dr. Burrascano has to say is also largely applicable to dogs. 

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in Dogs

Tick Disease and Epilepsy   My thanks to Deborah Histen, who has an epileptic Golden named Henry, for bringing up a very real concern about the possibility of phenobarbital getting in the way of a diagnosis when a seizuring dog is suspected of having tick disease.  Links to in-depth information on phenobarbital and to the Epil-k9 subscription page are here.

Online Medical Dictionary:  where to look up all those technical medical terms you may be floored by. 

PubMed  The National Library of Medicine:  Search for abstracts and sometimes complete articles on various diseases, human and canine.

The Australian Paralysis Tick:  For the Aussies, vital information.  For anyone, the flash animation of the feeding tick is repulsive, fascinating and clearly shows the way tick disease is transmitted. 

Google:  Google is always your best friend when looking for information.  Use only the most necessary words, such as "ehrlichiosis +dog".  (Quotes are not necessary and caps are ignored.  Generally, the singular "dog" will get better results than the plural.)  To emphasize a word, put a + directly in front of it;  to make sure you don't get references you don't want, put a minus sign there, i.e.:  ehrlichiosis +dog -human.

Tick List

If you are dealing with tick disease in your dog or simply suspect that you might be, I strongly suggest that you join Tick List.  The members of Tick-L have all been through what you are going through and are always ready to help with advice gained from experience that's sometimes been pretty painful.  There are also vets on the list; most notable is Dr. Tom Beckett in Texas, who is endlessly patient with help when we need it.  I don't know what we'd do without him.

To join

Tick borne disease is becoming epidemic in the United States, it's serious and it's deadly.  My German Shepherd Dog Thunder died of TBD because he was diagnosed too late.  Nancy Garcia's Australian Shepherd Adam
died of it.  Pam Barbe's beautiful Samoyeds have lived with constant pain thanks to tick borne disease and countless other dogs may have lost their lives to it with no one the wiser due to misdiagnosis.  

Read about it.  Save this page and those it links to against the day that I hope never comes, the day you need what you read here.

The very best of luck to you all in your efforts to help your dogs.

Gil. Ash