Dengue Fever in Dogs

Never underestimate ticks (tick) on your dog. Did you know that dogs can be affected by dengue fever as well as humans. But unlike humans, intermediaries occurrence of dengue fever in dogs is fleas. In addition, dengue fever is also not caused by a virus but rickettsia that cause symptoms that mimic the symptoms of dengue fever in humans. Dengue fever in dogs is known as tick fever, or tropical canine pancytopenia erlichiosos. Ticks are blood sucking eggs erlichia dog will enter into the blood and expand. I like to explain tick fever as dengue fever in dogs, due to the similarity of clinical symptoms of dengue fever in humans.

Just as in humans affected by dengue fever, tick fever affected dogs will feel the fever and the presence of red spots on thin skin areas, such as the inner ear or the lower abdomen. Red spots are caused by low levels of platelets in the blood (thrombocytopenia). Appetite decreased and the dog will look pale. More severe conditions will be seen a nosebleed on the nose, vomiting, presence of lymphadenopathy and splenomegaly (swelling of the lymph nodes). If the conditions of platelets and red blood cells have very low dog, then a blood transfusion is needed. Severe conditions can cause death.

The case of tick fever itself is often encountered and often writers have to do a blood transfusion. By using immunocomb antibody test kits, can be determined whether or not the dog is exposed to tick fever. In addition, by Giemsa staining, can be found a collection of erlichia canis in the cytoplasm of monocytes and neutrophils, although it is quite difficult to find him.

Prevention is the most important aspect. Prevent the louse is not just by cleaning your dog, but also the environment should be kept. While your dog is clean of ticks, but if the surrounding environment such as a cage, house walls, carpets and so there are ticks and their eggs, then your dog will easily be visited again by ticks.

Get used to bathe your dog once a week and if necessary by using a medicated shampoo to kill ticks. Drug use spray, tick collar (collar containing a drug to eliminate fleas and ticks), and drops are also very well used.