Ticks – a seasonal nuisance or all-year threat?

Sánchez-Vizcaíno et al. (2016a, 2016b) highlighted that tick activity was continuous throughout the year, even in winter, so there is no such thing as a vector-free period for ticks in the British Isles, as per Johnson (2016). The current understanding of the behaviour of D reticulatus is that adults begin questing between late August with a peak between September and November, followed by a further peak in the following March / April (Johnson, 2016). Johnson (2016) also notes that this could explain the appearance of cases over the winter months and subsequent decline in the cases through the spring for this type of tick. However, other tick species such as Ixodes ricinus are more widely distributed in the UK, active throughout most of the year and more commonly encountered by dogs (Abdullah et al., 2016).

To get the protection your pet deserves, come to the practice and ask us about our external parasitic treatments.

References

Abdullah, S., et al. (2016). Ticks infesting domestic dogs in the UK: a large scale surveillance programme, Parasites and Vectors, 9, 391.

Johnson, N. (2016). Tracing disease emergence: canine babesiosis in the UK, Veterinary Record, Journal of the British Veterinary Association, v179 n14 p356-357.

Sánchez-Vizcaíno, F., et al. (2016a). Small animal disease surveillance, Veterinary Record, 177, 591-594.

Sánchez-Vizcaíno, F., et al. (2016b). Canine babesiosis and tick activity monitored using companion animal electronic health records in the UK, Veterinary Record, doi:10.1136/vr.103908.