Park Hill Vet: The Bugs of Summer
How To Avoid The Creepy-Crawlies
As I write this is mid-May, it’s been a buggy week, with stories about murder hornets and dogs coming in with ticks. The ticks are early this year and more prevalent, but they are one of many bugs that proliferate in the summer – and many appear to be in higher numbers as we humans get back outside with our pets.
Ticks used to be of limited concern in Colorado, but with the ever-westward migration of ticks, greater movement of people and pets and changes in weather patterns, we have seen rising tick numbers for a few years. These minute bugs are perfect vectors and can carry one or more infectious diseases that impact mammals and not the insect.
First, a few things to protect humans and pets against tick-borne diseases:
• Avoid direct contact. Ticks like shrubs and tall grasses. When hiking, stay on the trails, avoid brushy areas, tall weeds and tall grasses.
• Use repellant products that contain DEET or permethrin.
• Wear protective clothing.
• Apply topical or give oral flea-tick preventative to your dog. The best of these products can be prescribed by your veterinarian versus over-the-counter products.
• Check and inspect. Look over yourself and your pets.
Tick-borne disease symptoms can be hard to identify as they are commonly subtle or mistaken for other diseases. Most common are flu-like symptoms such as aching joints, fever, headache and fatigue. Lyme disease can show a transient ring-like rash at the tick’s feeding site. Tularemia is less common as a disease in people, but is widespread in wild animals, especially rabbits. Most human cases are seen in hunters when common in contact with blood from an infected animal and clinical signs include sudden high fever, general weakness and painful, swollen lymph nodes.
Here’s a quick summary of ticks and diseases that are present in Colorado:
1. Colorado tick fever: This virus is carried by the Rocky Mountain Wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) and the American Dog tick (Dermacentor variablis). Both tick species can be found on small rodents, porcupines, raccoons, deer, horses, cattle, dogs and other larger animals. D. andersoni is the most common tick found in Colorado.
2. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: Caused by bacterium Rickettsia rickettsii that is carried in the Rocky Mountain Wood tick, the American Dog tick and the Brown Dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus).
3. Tick paralysis is very uncommon but has been seen in both dogs and humans, with long attachment of the Rocky Mountain Wood tick causing an ascending paralysis from a neurotoxin in the tick’s saliva that resolves when the tick is removed.
4. Tularemia: The bacterium Francisella tularensis is carried by both the Rocky Mountain Wood tick and American Dog tick.
5. Lyme disease and some other associated diseases are transmitted by the black legged or deer tick (Ixodes scapularis or I. pacificus) which carry Borrelia burgdorferi and related Borrelia species of bacteria. Lyme disease is still uncommonly diagnosed in humans in Colorado, but epidemiologists and tick experts expect to see a rise in cases over the next several years.
6. Ehrlichiosis is an emerging disease caused by rickettsial bacteria different from the Rickettsia ricketssii. Ehrlichiosis is carried by the Brown Dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus). Brown Dog ticks are the only species that can spend their entire life cycle indoors and live predominately in and around human settlements.
7. Babesia species are another form of tick-borne disease and can be carried by the deer tick Ixodes scapularis. Babesia are a microscopic parasite that can infect mammalian red blood cells.
8. Anaplasmosis is another tick-vectored bacteria that is spread by the deer tick species.
Now that your skin is feeling a bit crawly … well you know what you need to know about ticks. Make sure to enjoy a safe summer by talking with your veterinarian about prevention.
Dr. Margot Vahrenwald is the owner of Park Hill Veterinary Medical Center at 2255 Oneida St. For more information, visit www.parkhillvet.com