Elanco brought us Jersey Mikes today and we had a Webinar on meeting the challenge of parasites. The speaker was most intelligent and somewhat hard to follow but she spoke about tick diseases a great deal. And how most of the preventions for dogs just don’t have a quick enough kill time. As some ticks can transmit diseases such as ehrlichia in as little as three hours! Which I didn’t know. Also spoke about the new world screw worm and echinoccus tapeworm. It was open to a few questions afterward and it seems only our clinic scanned the QR code and asked some pertinent questions.
I asked what precautions other than latex gloves should be used when handling wildlife carcasses of canids. She recommends masking as well and being careful to avoid the abdominal contents/intestines. I didn’t hear her fully as the zoom meeting kept going in and out at inopportune times. But this tapeworm has me a little extra concerned. Especially with how incredibly minute the proglottids are. Almost impossible to see with the naked eye. As you can see in one photo

I like reading about all those things that can kill us Smash, but I don't worry about them too much.
Here's a kick arse worry song for your early evening listening pleasure.....i hope you enjoy the blues

Thanks buddy! Very hard for me not to worry. I get it from my mama!!

I’m half tempted to send in a fecal sample from a fox or coyote to Antech for their keystone antigen test to check for these tapeworms

I've a bug phobia ever since I contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever many years ago, 4 days I lost to it and 2 years before full recovery, if it were to hit me now at my age I doubt I would make it ! It scared my wife past half to death, and if were not for a passing thru doctor on tour from the east side, I might not have made it, as the doctors here at the time had no background in tracing it as it was only noticed back east at the time, he noticed as soon as he walked in the room that I had RMSTF and told them to get me on a medicine they had to send out for, as they had never heard of it, still took me two days after treatment to come out of it !

If it were not for my wife staying by my side at the hospital I would never have known what happened !!

No one should mess with ticks of any kind, I don't give any bug clearance now, and I wear gloves on any animal I harvest or pelt out, spray the fur when I'm field hunting as well,

Just writing about makes me feel buggy now !

That's been our experience. Our beagle doesn't go play at the land as much anymore (she'd love to, but she's getting old), but in a good day she can get 30-40 ticks. The standard dog treatments take time to kill the ticks (some they have to bite the dog, get blood, and the dog blood is made toxic to ticks by the pills). So she would track ticks into the house and drop through throughout the house.

We spray our cloths with permithrin, and now I spray the dog too (its labeled for it). I'll put on some rubber gloves, and spray her more than a misting, but not soaked, then rub her down with gloved hands. With that, she comes home tick free.

I’m kinda sold on Credelio Quattro as it has the quickest kill time on the market. Again; I wish we sold in in clinic!