Toxoplasmose

Hi all. New to this but wanted to give an alert about the ever present danger from Ticks over here in France. Having only recently arrived here from UK in March, we thought we had considered the risks for our three Bernese Mountain dogs. We had covered them against tick bites before leaving the UK....or so we thought! Within two weeks our 6 year old became very ill.We did not consider a tick bite could be responsible for such a rapid & dramatic deterioration. Fortunately we found a brilliant vet in Meyssac who diagnosed toxoplasmose immediately & she successfully treated it. We immediately covered all three hounds again with French tick meds & fortunately all is now well. Hamlet recovered after 3 weeks of antibiotics & steroids. A salutary lesson for us.

Hi Victoria.....sorry for delayed response. Have had a tricky time over past few days with a very unwell Hamlet again!!! Agree absolutely re impaired immune system after "tick disease" & have just been told by vet today he has a massive tumour in his spleen, with lung metastases, which explains his low immunity, lethargy & multiple trips to vet being required. A very sad day for us!

Our senior Dalmatian had tick disease, he recovered but it's definitely impaired his immune system. We were using Frontline and Advantix when he got it, since then he's been wearing Serresto collars and though we've found the odd small tick walking around on him we've never found one that's attached.

I'm going to give them another try with the huge ones. Other remedies seem to be a bit hit and miss. Hugo this morning had the most ginormous tick on his neck (duly removed and squished) - he also vomited up the last big tablet and he's a ridgeback cross (I think) about the size of a labrador/GS. My tribe are definitely worth it and with the recent sun/rain/sun/rain the ticks seem to be in abundance at the moment.

Agreed they are not the easiest to swallow for smaller dogs I guess. My boys Wolfed them down in a small chunk of cheese....I know that's not the best food for them but would rather they did not get toxoplasmose in the future! Definitely worth persevering &forgot to say how reasonably priced all meds have been from vet so far.

The ginormotablets are completely wonderful - you just need to snap them in 4 & stick each quarter in a bit of sausage or whatever your dog likes. They are the only thing that really work on my garden-loving flea-allergy-ridden old lady.

I tried some huge things, Centric or something like that? All the dogs vomited them straight back out. Ho hum. I might just bubble wrap them.

The tablets are huge, round blighters and new to the market. Have always used Advantix &Frontline in UK which worked there! .. Available at Vet only & cannot remember name of them I am afraid. Boy were they effective tho! Valerie....they are horrible things aren't they. The week after Hamlets little experience my husband had to dig a tick out of my shoulder....obviously could not survive on the dogs so went for me!!!

I'm sneaking in behind Karen. I've used all sorts of lotions and potions on the three dogs and three furbabies but I still end up corkscrewing the blighters off. Even took one off my 10 year old son yesterday with the bloody corkscrew! Only found it when I was trimming his hair - tiny thing but eyeballs peeled now for any reddening. Horrendous things.

What French tick treatment did you use? Is it different to Advantix, frontline etc? Just wondering if I need to use something different on our two.