Temperatures have been soaring over the last couple of weeks here in Brisbane, some days we have reached 35°C. It’s not even summer yet! It’s great when the weather is like this, but with it returns Australia’s silent assassin.
You do already know all about this little critter, that is, of course, if you read my post called The Life of a Tick. The dangers of ticks are explained fully there, so no need for me to repeat them again in this post.
Ticks on the attack
It’s only been hot for about a month or so, but already this nasty little creature has been on the attack. Ultra-observant readers of this blog will have noticed that Mrs Bobinoz and I do run a local pet care business. It’s through this work that we come across the problems caused by these ticks.
A few weeks ago I called on a house to feed a couple of cats, and one of them, Morgan, was lying on the ground just off of the path clearly struggling for breath. I tried to pick him up to see if he could stand, he just flopped straight down again as he continued to gasp.
Morgan was virtually paralysed.
I knew almost immediately he had been the victim of a tick. Sometimes it is possible to remove ticks before too much damage is done, but Morgan looked beyond that. So I put him in a crate, stuck him on the passenger seat of my car and off we went on the 45 minute journey to the emergency vet.
Yes, it was also a bank holiday Monday.
Morgan gasped for air constantly throughout the whole journey, looking at me with sad and desperate eyes. When we got to the vets, they immediately put him on a respirator and then they found and removed TWO ticks. After I’d signed a consent form, he was admitted for his 3 day stay.
You’ll be pleased to hear that Morgan lived and has now fully recovered. His owners though are still recovering from the $1200 bill!
I have many more stories like this, ticks are certainly a big danger to cats and dogs and even humans here in Australia. You can get a treatment for your pets, and in the height of summer you’ll need to apply it about every 2 or 3 weeks. It’s not cheap and it’s not 100% guaranteed to work.
But with vet bills like that, it’s worth a go.
Here’s Dr Ross Perry…
The paralysis tick is definitely an Australian Bad Thing.
Image source for the tick Wikipedia
Nice… It sounds like a pain in the butt to get just a single tick out.
Definitely, especially if the tick latches on to your butt!