Ticks are resilient little creatures that never seem to die. They survive almost any attempt to eradicate them. The rate at which they spread, as well as their resistance to pesticides is amazing. Ticks normally appear when the weather gets warmer, but inside kennels and homes with heat inside, ticks can breed at any time of the year. If it`s cold they will simply hide inside little nooks and crannies and patiently wait for the temperature to get warmer.

It takes 10 to 30 days for tick eggs to hatch, so you should treat an infested home at 10 day intervals, at least 4 times. Then after that, once per month for 2 to 3 months. Any sprays and insecticides used should say “acaracide” on the can, since other insecticides and sprays have little or no effect.

It is normally only required to spray to about the level of 2 or 3 feet up the wall from the floor. Spraying should be done to areas where the dog often sleeps, such as the sofa or chairs if he indeed does sleep there. The edges of rugs should be sprayed, as should the edges of baseboards.

For human beings, the main threat of ticks is the disease referred to as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Despite its geographically-specific name, the disease is not limited to the Rocky Mountain region. It can be caught over much of the USA and Canada. Ticks sometimes also cause a disease called “rabbit fever” in rodents, which can be transmitted to people.

In some warmer areas such as the Southern USA, France, and Africa, there is an intestinal protozan parasite called babesia that causes extreme anemia in dogs by attacking their white blood cells. Ticks spread this protozan from dog to dog. Being a host to many ticks can cause serious problems for a dog, including loss of large amounts of blood, anemia, paralysis, and eventually death is serious scenarios.

There is such a thing as flea and tick collars which are supposed to kill ticks. These can be useful for dealing with ticks that go undetected by the dog`s owners, but they are not ideal and if possible the owner should try to detect the tick and remove it, because damage and illness can occur in the dog before the tick is eventually killed by the collar. There is also a kind of tablet that veterinarians sometimes prescribe, that the dog can ingest and it will ensure that any tick feeding on the dog will die.

The above serious consequences of tick infestation are outlined here so that you will understand the importance of dealing with tick infestation in your home. Complacency on the part of dog owners can have serious effects on your dog and even on the owners themselves.

Dog Ticks Information

Every year when the weather starts getting warmer, dog owners should begin to get concerned about “Rhipicephalus Sanquineus”, commonly referred to as ticks. Ticks are disease-carriers, and can be enough of a danger to infect human beings with illnesses like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and paralysis, as well as cause illness and even death in dogs and puppies.

Ticks are shameless little blood-suckers that were responsible for killing countless British war dogs in Singapore in the past, with an microorganism they were carrying. In addition to that, over the course of the Vietnam war, over three hundred American war dogs were killed by tropical canine hemorrhagic syndrome, an illness that is typified by fever and hemorrhaging. Research conducted at the time concluded that, contrary to everyone`s expectations, the common tick was blamed for carrying those diseases to the dogs.

There is more than one subset of ticks, for example the wood tick and the brown dog tick. But they are ticks and are related. Ticks are resistant to insecticide, which makes it difficult to control and eliminate them.

Female ticks lay eggs – huge numbers of eggs. They will lay as many as 5000 eggs in the nooks and crannies of a dog crate or dog house, base board, or underneath the carpets at your house. The eggs are not laid upon the dog or other host animal. After somewhere between 20 and 30 days have passed, the eggs hatch and larvae are released. The larvae then look for a dog to become its host animal, feed on its blood, then release themselves and go off into hiding again. 6 to 23 days after that, the larvae metamorphisize and turn into nymphs with 8 legs. The nymphs then seek out a dog once again (either the same dog or another one), feed on its blood again, then releases itself once more and goes into hiding again. After 12 to 29 days, the tick nymph metamorpisizes into an adult. The adult tick now seeks out a dog host once again, feeds on its blood once again, and then mates. This process is not necessarily a quick one, since ticks can live in your home for up to 2 years without a host animal.

If the ticks are not inside of a house, they can also exist outside. They can climb onto tree branches and leaves and wait for dogs to pass by and become unwitting host dogs. If your dog takes a nap under a tree or in some bushes, or even simple playing within jumping distance of the parasite, the tick can leech onto the dog. Indoors the ticks will come out from underneath the carpets to reach your dog, or climb walls and tables and chairs, or wherever the tick deems a convenient place to await your dog`s proximity. Ticks can wait as long as six months for a dog to arrive, but the moment the dog arrives the tick knows instantly and jumps to attach itself onto the dog.

When the tick gets onto the dog, it burrows its head under the dog`s skin, sticks out its barbed probe which is kind of like a fish hook shape that keeps the tick from becoming dislodged. When the barbed probe is extended under the skin, the dog can shake or scratch the area all it wants, the tick will not become dislodged.

The adult tick feeds on the host`s blood until it is approximately the size of a pea (quite large if you think about it). A male tick, which is brown in color and much less large than the female tick, then mates with the female tick. She then releases herself from the host dog, and goes off into hiding to lay her thousands of eggs in covert hiding spaces like between the cushions of your couch, or under your carpets.

It is hard to get rid of a tick infestation once it has started in a dog`s kennel or home. But removing a single tick from a dog can be a relatively easy process. The challenge is spotting and identifying the tick before it causes your dog any illness or much pain.

How to Remove a Tick From a Dog

Removing dog ticks is something that can be accomplished by the dog`s owner, as long as the tick isn`t attached to the inside of the ear or the dog`s eyelid, or another spot that is difficult to access and would probably necessitate the use of anesthesia. Regular brushing of the dog can remove ticks if they have not yet attached themselves to the dog by burrowing under its skin and inserting their barbed probe. But if the dog tick has already latched onto the dog using its barbed probe then brushing is not enough. The tick will have to be honed in on and specifically removed.

You should pull the dog`s hair back from the spot where the tick is enlodged so they we have full view of the tick. Once you have done this, you may try applying a few drops of rubbing alcohol or iodine straight onto the tick. This can temporarily shock the bug, and might cause it to loosen its barbed probe.

Now use a pair of tweezers, get as near as you can to the skin, and pull the tick out with a slight twisting movement. The aim of that is to make sure the tick`s head does not break off and remain under the dog`s skin. If the head breaks off and stays under the dog`s skin, a secondary infection is possible. After removing the tick, it is a good idea to reapply iodine or alcohol to the open wound. If the tick`s head has broken off under the skin, hydrogen peroxide can be applied to the wound and this has been known to help.

Typically, after the removal of ticks from the dog, the dog gets reinfested with ticks once again because the owner gets complacent. It`s important to remember the female ticks usually lay 4-5000 eggs at a time, so if one of them infested your dog it is likely that more could do so as well. Washing the dog with a tick powder or different acaracide substance is useful, but the eggs or larvae may be present somewhere in your home, in which case care must be taken to rid the home of this problem as well.

In the 1930s all we knew about hip dysplasia was what was written in the medical press, an excerpt of which read like this:

“It (hip dysplasia) constituted faulty growth and development of all tissues in and around the hip joint, that it was not uncommon in a tribe of Canadian Indian children and Italian children and, if not corrected in its early stage, could lead to very painful, arthritic hips in human at middle age or beyond.”

More information about canine hip dysplasia

Our knowledge of hip dysplasia in canines has grow dramatically since the 1930s. We now understand that, unlike other diseases and physical ailments, canine hip dysplasia doesn`t continue to increase in severity as time goes on. But rather, the condition has an acute phase with dramatic symptoms, which occurs during the period of rapid growth in the dog. That is to say, hip dysplasia affects puppies and young dogs that are still growing and physically maturing, typically in large breeds of dogs. During the acute phase, the dog may even have trouble standing up, especially on a slippery surface like a tiled floor or linoleum floor.

Rather than easily standing up, or comfortably returning to a sitting position, the dog in this acute phase will typically fall down with a rough impact, because of the pain in the hip joints. And of course the impact will cause additional pain. The more we have learned about this condition the more we understand that as the animal matures physically and the rapidity of growth decelerates, the acute phase ends and the symptoms decrease greatly. Sometimes they disappear entirely.

The Similarities Between Canine Hip Dysplasia & Hip Troubles in People

Arthritis, in its acute phases that affect people`s lives, may or may not makes itself evident during the middle age years or later years of a person`s life. The factors that affect whether arthritis appears acutely are varied, but include lifestyle and level of activity, sensitivity, weight, race, and so on. This is distinct from hip dysplasia in dogs because in dogs the acute phases comes when the dog is physically maturing into an adult, rather than in its old age.

There are two things that show us the clear difference between hip dysplasia in human beings and in canines. The first thing is that man walks on his hind legs only, and for a much longer time period than dogs. And the second thing is that the condition in dogs is diagnosed based on the looseness of the dog`s joints (aka “joint laxity”) in the young dog.

The ramifications of the first factor mentioned above is that dogs with pain in their hind legs can easily shift a lot of their weight to their front legs, whereas humans don`t do this. This is one of the reasons that the condition can become worse in humans as time goes on, even though in dogs it often goes away as the dog gets older.

Some Veterinarians Disagreed With This Thinking

In actuality, puppies and young dogs that have dog hip displasia have a good chance of going on to live a normal and fulfilling life if the dog is simply left to mature with no further intervention. Many dogs will cease to be badly affected by the condition once they reach their full level of maturity, leading some veterinarians to avoid recommending surgery or putting the dog to sleep.

There is little in the way of reputable research or statistics to show that young dogs exhibiting hip dysplasia turn out any better after surgery than do those who are left to mature without intervention. Countless dogs that overcame their condition naturally without surgery can take place in dog shows, tracking, obedience trails, and other forms of exercise and activity. So we have a large amount of anecdotal evidence that surgery is not necessary in young dogs. Scientifically speaking, it makes little sense to sever tendons and muscle in the young dog. It results in the ball slipping out of its socket, which is exactly the problem of hip dysplasia in the first place.

However, when performed on an older dog undergoing constant pain, dog dysplasia surgery can be a useful procedure that instantly relieves discomfort. This is done by adjusting the weight bearing surface in the hip joint. But it is not clear how long such relief lasts, or what percentage of dogs experience relief by undergoing this procedure. But this is definitely a valid option for older dogs.

Uncertainty Over Whether Dog Hip Dysplasia is Genetic

Human hip dysplasia is genetic, so early researchers of canine hip dysplasia were working under the assumption that it too was a genetic condition. Their research focused on whether the cidtion was dominant or recessive. There is evidence that there is a genetic element to hip dysplasia in dogs, but a Swedish study was conducted on over eleven thousand German Shepherd dogs that determined that a decade of selective breeding could not successfully lower the number of offspring with canine hip dysplasia. They also could not lower the number of moderate-severe cases.

The Swedish researchers concluded that there was less of a genetic factor causing dog hip dysplasia as they had originally assumed. They observed different factors linked to the condition: the characteristics of the pelvic inlet, as well as the rate of bone maturation in the particular dog.

Greyhounds are the only large breed of canines that does not experience hip dysplasia. This is a breed with very slow bone maturation. Cases of cross-breeding Greyhounds and German Shepherds resulted in a generation of offspring with no hip dysplasia. If slow bone maturation is the key to preventing the condition, then is there any way we can slow bone maturation? There is some evidence that a restricted day that slows bone maturation is possible.

We don`t yet have a complete understanding of what factors cause dog hip dysplasia. But the rate of bone maturation, as well as giving young dogs the opportunity to overcome the condition without interference, seem to be key points to focus on.

Veterinarians who like to take more or a holistic approach to dog health care and medicine tend to be against suppressing a dog`s cough, unless it is totally necessary. Coughs like these are often solved with homeopathics and/or herbal remedies.

If you haven`t yet tried such an approach to treating your pet`s cough, then perhaps that should be your next step. Look into some of the all-natural products being sold today, for example Astragalus 16 and Pinellia 16. Others are available as well, so I receommend you research them in depth and decide which one seems most appropriate for your dog`s cough.

Question: Throughout the past six months our dog has been getting quite ill and having terrible bouts of diarrhea every time he eats a meal. We have attempted to feed him various different types of commercial dog food, but realized that he must be allergic to all the different types of protein sources we were giving him. Is there any way to get our dog the nutrients he needs without buying him commercial dog food (which will presumably make him sick)?

It may seem like you have exhausted all your options when it comes to your beloved pet`s diet, but don`t despair. There is one option you have yet to try, one that may not make him sick. This option is 100% natural raw food for dogs.

The point is to feed your dog raw protein sources from hereon out. Before being domesticated, dogs didn`t know how to cook food for themselves. They ate completely raw, whole food diets, which is their natural way to eat. Of course in this day and age of flashy marketing campains, it`s not in dog food companies` best interest to tell you this, they would rather you buy their unnatural concoctions in a can or plastic bag.

You should beging feeding your dog the raw food diet in small portions. The main element of the diet is clean raw meats, but you can also include raw fish, lamb, dairy, wheat, and yeast, all of which an be commonly found in most whole food dog food recipes. But be prepared to supplement the diet with calcium, since you probably aren`t using crushed bone or another natural calcium source. Commercial dog foods usually have calcium added, but this element will probably be missing in the natural diet unless you supplement it. It would also be a good idea to include a vitamin/mineral supplement as well.

In recent times there has been lots of argument over what kind of diets pets (especially cats and dogs) should have. Pet food recalls in recent years have ignited a lot of curiosity about what constitutes a safe and healthy diet for your beloved dog. A vegetarian diet for your puppy should be fine, but you will need to keep an eye on the diet`s macronutrients to make sure the dog gets enough protein. Additionally supplementation should also be taken, such as omega-3 oils and vitamins/minerals.

It is also important to always monitor your puppy`s health and growth, and if you notice any changes for the worse then you will want to consult your veterinarian to eliminate the problem. Be ready to adapt your puppy`s diet if it proves unhealhty or insufficient for him.

Since your pet has had this condition since he was a small puppy, there is probably nothing wrong, and this is just how your particular dog happens to be built. But, if you are concerned, it is best to visit your vet and have the dog`s kidneys checked out with blood and urine tests.

How to control seizures that result from distemper

Question:  My 4 year old mixed Labrador caught distemper from another puppy in the neighbourhood. Thanks to homeopathy, the early acute period of distemper went by relatively smoothly. However, she began having seizures again on a daily basis a few weeks later. My spouse and I have been doing a lot of research and are now thinking about giving our dog Phenobarbital, also known as just “Pheno”. Is Pheno safe? How does it work?

In an animal with distemper, demyelination causes the lingin of the nervous tissue to be destroyed. Subsequently, the dog`s body attempts to fight this by using its own immune cells. The result is encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, which leads to seizures.

Phenobarbital is thought to be a good way to help fight against and limit your pet`s seizures. It might also be wise to supplement this with a Chinese herbal formula that will aid in healing the damage already done. On top of that, hemp oil, vitamin D and B, kelp, supplemental magnesium, and vitamin C can all have a positive effect on this condition.

Pheno should not be taken permanently and eventually you should wean your dog off of it. But vets dealing with holistic medicine will continue to advise you to give your dog the herbal supplementation longer term.

As is usually the case with health issues involving drugs or supplements, please be sure to consult with your veteranarian.