I hold a veterinary nursing qualification alongside my grooming ones, and of everything that comes through this salon, ticks are the one thing I will stop a groom for.
Ticks turn up all over the world, but the paralysis tick is ours. It lives along the humid east coast of Australia, from North Queensland down into northern Victoria, and Broadbeach Waters sits squarely in the middle of that range. If you walk your dog here, you are walking in tick country.
The textbook answer is that the worst months run from August through to February, and that is worth knowing. But this salon has been on the Gold Coast since 1998, and I have had pets come in carrying ticks in every month of the year. The pattern I trust more than the calendar is the weather. Rain after a warm spell brings them out, and around here that is hardly a rare combination.
What tick paralysis looks like
The signs creep in rather than arrive all at once, which is exactly what makes them easy to miss. The ones owners describe to me most often are these.
- Vomiting, regurgitating, or refusing food
- A change in voice, where the bark or the meow turns hoarse
- Weakness through the back legs
- Loss of coordination, or suddenly not being able to manage the stairs
- Breathing that is not right, whether that is panting, coughing, or slow laboured breaths
Not every animal follows that script. Some show none of the usual signs and simply seem unwell in a way you cannot put your finger on. My nursing training taught me to take exactly that seriously. If something is off and you cannot explain it, treat that as reason enough to go looking.
Left alone, tick poisoning gets worse rather than better. The animal becomes unable to stand, breathing becomes very difficult, and untreated it kills. This is not a wait and see situation.
If you find one
Adult paralysis ticks have long barbed mouth-parts that bury into the skin, which is exactly why they are awkward to remove. Grip as close to the skin as you can with tweezers, or better, use a Tick Twister. It is designed for the job and costs very little.
If the mouth-parts snap off and stay in, the tick is dead and cannot produce any more toxin or burrow further, so do not panic about it. The site can become infected though, so remove what you can and treat it with an antiseptic.
If you are not certain whether the lump you have found is a tick at all, ring us. One of our groomers will happily look and tell you. I would far rather we checked ten skin tags than have someone talk themselves out of coming in.
Where grooming fits, and where it does not
I want to be straight about this, because I do not believe in selling grooming as something it is not. A wash and blow dry is not tick prevention.
What it is, is a set of trained hands going over every inch of your dog under good light. A tick that is easy to miss at home on the lounge in the evening is a great deal harder to miss here. Our groomers do find them. That is a genuine benefit of booking in regularly, and it is worth saying out loud, but it does not replace a preventative product and I would never suggest it did.
Two things that actually prevent them
Search, and search often. Do it right through the season even if your pet is on a preventative, because nothing is perfect. Most ticks turn up on the head, neck or shoulders. The method that works is systematic rather than casual. Run your fingers along the skin rather than the coat, and cover the whole body in the same order every time so that you never skip anywhere.
Use a preventative product. There are several effective ones, including Nexgard, Advantix and Frontline, in oral and spot-on forms, and tick collars can help as well. Your vet is the right person to tell you which suits your particular animal, not me and not the internet.
When to stop reading and start driving
If your dog or cat is showing any of the signs above, do not wait for an appointment and do not wait for us. Go straight to your vet, or to the Animal Emergency Centre at Carrara if it is outside normal hours. Tick paralysis moves quickly, and in my experience the pets who come through it well are almost always the ones who got there early.
