Testing for Tick Borne Diseases: How and When?
Rick Alleman, DVM, PhD University of Florida C. Guillermo Couto, DVM The Ohio State University version of this article. (You will need Adobe Reader to view this file.) Tick borne diseases (TBDs) used to be quite common in Greyhounds, and some believe they are still very prevalent. A fair number of people involved in Greyhound rescue consider it more cost-effective to “treat” dogs for TBDs than to test them and treat only the positive ones. This approach should be frowned upon, since: • not all TBDs respond to doxycycline or imidocarb; • adverse reactions to imidocarb are common (and sometimes severe in Greyhounds) In our experience with Greyhounds over the past 17 years, the prevalence of TBDs has decreased markedly, likely due to better tick control. For example, 15 years ago approximately half of the retired racing Greyhounds evaluated as potential blood donors at OSU tested positive for Babesia canis or Ehrlichia canis serology, whereas now only 1-3% of the dogs are positive for any
