my ticks don't have lyme

[laurenjeannie]

So I have been grooming dogs for about two months now, and I really love it. Some customers make me mad, but more often they make me laugh. It's amazing how little dog owners know about dogs.

My favorite story being the dog that we found 4 (four!) ticks on. It's the summer, dogs go on camping trips, they get ticks, so we remove them, bag them and send them home with the owner telling them to have their vet test the ticks for lyme disease as it's much easier to test the bug than the dog. We explained to the owner and she quite haughtily told us that no...her ticks didn't have lyme disease.

I also get the people who bring their dogs in severely matted and then get mad at us for insisting that the only way to solve the problem is to shave the dog. This normally happens with small toy breeds. Apparently it is our fault they failed to brush their dog out properly on a regular basis to prevent the situation from becoming dire.

ANd then there are the women who expect their dog to be done within an hour. Ha. In order to properly cut a dogs hair, you have to bathe them, and they have to be completely dry before you cut. This can take up to 5 hours with bigger dogs. Wer tell them no, it will be several hours and we'll call as soon as their dog is done, yet they still insist on coming in every hour on the hour to see if Fluffy is done yet.

[Cats]

Her ticks don't have Lyme? HA!

Last year, I ended up with Lyme from a tick that apparently my cat dragged in (we use frontline and it works great, but we realized around the same time that it wasn't keeping them off her that time, our guess it was just a bad batch, it happens). I was lucky, not only did I KNOW I had been bitten by a tick (hell, I didn't even know the thing was on me until I had an itch and ended up pulling it clean off), but I also got the disctinctive rash around 4 weeks later, so I was diagnosed immedately after and got prompt treatment.

I tell ya, I was slowly feeling more crappy in the days just before the rash appeared (The headache I initally had I chalked up to sleeping funny and giving myself a neck cramp, since that HAS happened to me before, and I DID sleep funny the first day it appeared), and I was not even 48 hours into the 3 damn weeks of antibiotics and I already started to feel like a million bucks. Weirdest yet legit reason to call out of work "Yeah, I've got Lyme disease and the dugs haven't started to kick in yet!"


Anyway, my kitty occasionally gets small matts that we have to cut out. It's not for lack of (attempted) grooming, because she's picky and will only tolerate so much at once. Plus she's got very fine and fluffy fur, and a LOT of it (she's medium haired), so it's sort of natually prone to do that in the spots she can't clean herself properly.

[LillFilly]

Wow, her ticks are too good for lyme disease!?? Uhhuh, I bet her dog's s***t doesn't smell either!

Gah! Where do these people come from!??

[Ironclad Alibi]

We explained to the owner and she quite haughtily told us that no...her ticks didn't have lyme disease.

It's nice that her ticks didn't have lime disease, but there are other diseases that are just as bad. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Regarding lyme disease, I was bitten by a deer tick, but fortunately did not get lyme disease. My wife's cousin and our neightbor were not so lucky.

Now for the sad story.

We have a dog that is 15 or so years old. He had cataracts. We found out that there was a vet that operated on doggy cataracts. We had the procedure done. Unfortunately, we found a dog tick on him. Since he is on a medication to prevent ticks, we didn't think much of it. After his cataract operation, his vision didn't improve. Further testing revealed that he had rocky mountain spotted fever, which attacked the eyes, since they were weak from the operation. So in spite of the cararact operation, we now have a blind dog, thanks to that one tick.

In researching rocky mountain spotted fever, I found out it is most prevelant in the southeastern area of the US. It is also normally not tested for by vets.