Q: If a dog has had a Lyme disease vaccination is any other prevention recommended?
Pav Sterry
Columbus, Ohio
Dear Ms. Sterry,
A: “Vaccine or not, a year-round tick preventative is essential in areas where ticks are endemic,” Tufts veterinary internist Michael Stone, DVM, states emphatically. Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks, and tick prevention means disease prevention.
Warding off ticks with tick medicine is especially important in light of the fact that the Lyme disease vaccination is not 100 percent effective. Furthermore, by preventing one serious disease with a tick preventative, you’re preventing others. Ticks can cause more illnesses than just Lyme.
It’s also a good idea, especially during the warmer months when ticks are more abundant, not to walk your dog in tall grass or fields. Ticks are all too comfortable in those environments.
Dog won’t stop eating dirt
Q: I rescued Jed, a tree-walking coonhound mix, 2 years ago. He has many issues, but the most concerning is his constant eating of soil/dirt in the yard. My vet can’t give me an answer about why he would be doing this. It is not occasional. It is every time he is outside. Where once I had a nice lawn I now have holes all over the yard. Please give me some insight into this problem.
Toni Dickinson
Concord, North Carolina
Dear Ms. Dickinson,
A: A dog with relentless pica like Jed should have a medical exam with a full panel of blood work and a rule-out of any metabolic conditions that could keep him feeling hungry all the time. If a disease is picked up, it can be addressed and treated.
If no physiologic illness is found, eating dirt outside could potentially be a displacement behavior resulting from stress, boredom, anxiety or a combination of those emotional states. Sometimes, as may be the case with Jed, the displacement behavior graduates to a true compulsion that is acted out at every opportunity — and no longer has anything to do with what got it going in the first place.
If Jed’s medical condition checks out fine, the aim is to combat the behavioral/emotional issue — perhaps with more attention, more stimulation (play and classes, such as agility), and a more active lifestyle in general. If the behavior proves particularly intractable, an SSRI such as Prozac (fluoxetine) might be necessary to help him over the hump as he learns new behaviors.
