Can dogs get Lyme disease?

What is Lyme Disease?

As mentioned above, Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium (Borrelia Burgdorferi). This bacterium is transferred after a bite from a tick carrying the bacterium. In takes approximately 48 hours for a tick to transfer Lyme disease after a bite. It’s important to remove the tick as soon as possible, preferable within 24 hours of the bite.

Symptoms in a dog with Lyme disease

Humans often get symptoms fairly quickly after infection, but dogs don’t. This makes it difficult to determine whether your dog has Lyme disease based on symptoms alone. Even so, symptoms may become evident in your dog after a couple of weeks or months. These may include:

• Fever
• Arthritis
• Kidney problems

Where is Lyme disease most prevalent?

Infected ticks can be anywhere. But when you look at how ticks like to live, they are most prevalent in warm places with a lot of vegetation. You and your dog are more at risk of a tick bite during a summery walk through the forest or across moorlands.

How do you know if your dog has Lyme disease?

Because dogs with Lyme disease are often asymptomatic, it is usually discovered quite late. The veterinarian will do a blood test to confirm your dog has Lyme disease. This blood test determines the amount of antibodies in the blood.

How is Lyme disease treated?

There are vaccinations against Lyme disease. You could ask your veterinarian for the vaccination, although opinions on it vary. Because most dogs with Lyme disease are asymptomatic, some veterinarians don’t agree with the usefulness of the vaccinations.

When your dog is diagnosed with Lyme disease, he is primarily treated symptomatic. An antibiotics treatment is given as well, which lessens the bacteria. Unfortunately, Lyme disease will never disappear completely.

How to prevent Lyme Disease?

You now know Lyme disease is transferred by ticks, which means you also know you should try to avoid the critters. Regularly treating your dog for flees and ticks will help your dog be less at risk for a bite from an infected tick.

Note! A tick will need to bite before being killed by flee or tick treatment. After biting, the tick will die before it can transfer the bacterium. Some spot-on treatments have a ‘hot-foot’ effect, meaning ticks are less likely to bite your dog and fall off more quickly.

Note down in your diary when you’ve removed a tick. Does your dog have vague symptoms? Always tell your veterinarian you removed a tick and when you did so.

More questions about Lyme disease? Contact us at veterinarian@vetsend.co.uk.