Lyme disease dogs

Lyme disease or borreliosis is a canine disease sustained by the spirochete Borrelia bugdorferi complex. The spirochete bacteria are special and belong to this group also leptospires, the etiological agents of leptospirosis, and Treponema is the causative agent of syphilis.

Lyme disease is a zoonosis, a disease that is transmissible from animals to humans but always and only with a vector in this case is the hard tick Ixodes ricinus. (See article ticks: introductory scene).

Man evolution and has important symptoms that will be covered in a separate chapter, in this article we will deal with the disease in dogs.

The Borreliae are pathogens that can not survive outside a host, and this means that to pass from one host to another, will serve as a vector which is precisely the tick.

Guests ever more important as a reservoir of Borrelia burgdorferi are small rodents such as field mice, voles, hedgehogs, which contracted borreliosis by the bite of an infected tick. When another tick feeds on their blood assumes that borrelia then transfers to other animals or humans. This happens even if the tick developmental change of shape, that is, even if it passes from larva to nymph or from nymph to adult, but the adult tick does not pass the disease to her eggs.

Guests are spares in addition to small rodents may be the man, dog, rabbit, birds, foxes, badgers, small ruminants including deer, livestock, etc. …

In animals the disease is insidious and difficult to diagnose. From a recent study it seems that only 5% of dogs infected with the disease presenting as the clinical course of infection with Borrelia depends on numerous factors such as age of the dog, his general health, your immune system , the concomitant presence of other diseases, the amount of borreliae by the tick-borne or the concomitant injection of other diseases by the same brand.

Symptoms

The first symptoms of an acute borreliosis type skeletal muscle pain and lameness therefore, associated with or preceded by a general malaise with fever. If the infection remains are then affected other organs such as liver and kidneys.
The bite of infected tick can be done even months before and that makes it even more difficult to diagnose.

The lameness is caused by a polyarthritis that is, to an inflammation of all joints, but not simultaneously, so you can see that the dog limps with one leg today and tomorrow with another. This form of acute polyarthritis is often accompanied by fever and is generally intermittent ie it can also regress without a specific therapy for then recur from time to time. The clinical evolution of subclinical chronic polyarthritis is periarthritis.

The damage caused by the spirochete other organs lead instead to a chronic liver disease, an acute or chronic renal failure, cardiovascular disorders and in neurological disorders.
The classic symptom onset of skin in man, well known and described, the ‘erythema migrans, has no analogue in the dog.

Diagnosis

It ‘requires a blood sample to be sent to specialized laboratories for testing.

Therapy

It ‘a disease that is cured with antibiotics.
The most effective are the tetracyclines and doxyciclina is the drug of choice. The timing of administration are very long and indispensable, even a month in a row.
In growing dogs is preferred to amoxicillin.

Prevention

- Pesticides external
- Remove ticks within 48 hours (the time required to switch to brand Lyme disease in dogs)
- Vaccination: it’s not a routine vaccination but the vaccine is available. And ‘recommended every time you attend areas where Lyme disease is endemic such as the Trentino Alto Adige. The process involves two vaccinations vaccine at 3 weeks apart the first year and an annual booster thereafter.