Mary Allen
Parasites that reside on the dog and feed through the dog’s skin are called ectoparasites. These include insects with six legs, such as the flea, or arachnids with eight legs, such as ticks and mites. The infested dog is called the “host” in veterinary medicine because the mites feed on the dog’s blood or dander and lay their eggs on or in the skin. Mites are generally not very “host-loyal” and can also spread to other dogs and people. If parasites cause a disease that can be transmitted to humans, it is called zoonosis.
What Populations of Mites Can Infest the Dog?
Ear Mites
The ear mite (Otodectes cynotis) is a tiny arachnid that feeds on dead skin cells or fluids in the pinna and ear canal area. It causes enormous itching in the dog with its saliva and excretions. If your dog has contracted ear mites, you’ll see him scratching his ears frequently and holding his head to the side, and shaking. In the ear canal, you can see a coffee grounds-like, crumbly substance and an unpleasant odor – often described as sweet. Usually, both ears are affected and unfortunately, it usually does not just remain with the parasite infestation, but often there is also a yeast or bacterial infection. Please don’t underestimate the situation, because if you wait too long to get the appropriate treatment from the vet, it can lead to otitis media or, in the worst case, deafness due to a rupture of the eardrum.
Treatment
You can get the most effective treatment from your veterinarian or alternative animal practitioner, who has appropriate (ear) preparations on-site and can correctly assess the degree of infestation. As a preventive measure, you can clean the auricles and have the auditory canals checked by the veterinarian at certain intervals, especially in dogs with floppy ears. However, you should have a professional show you how to clean it, as this has to be learned so that cleaning actually leads to an improvement and does not make the problem worse.
Space Elves
The predatory mites (Cheyletiella spp.) are relatively large compared to other mite species and can be seen with the naked eye. They are also described as migratory scales because they are usually seen on the dog’s back as small white movable scales. These contemporaries are very contagious and can also affect humans (zoonosis). They cause itchy patches of skin that can become inflamed, leading to hair loss and scab formation.
It is interesting that there are dogs that carry these mites with them, but there is no symptomatic clinical picture as described above. However, they can infect other animals.
Treatment
With these mites, a vet visit is essential and your home and – especially your dog’s bedding – needs to be disinfected daily as long as your dog is infested. You can get these products from a well-stocked pet store or from a veterinarian. If your dog is normally allowed to sleep in your bed or on the couch, this should be avoided during the mite infestation. The zoonosis doesn’t wait long and you too can be infected.
Your dog’s treatment will take place via shampoos, sprays, and/or spot-on products that you can obtain from your veterinarian.
Autumn Grass Mites
The autumn grass mite, also called harvest dross, is caused by a larva of the Neotrombicula autumnal. It is a small orange-red arachnid that is easily recognizable on a light background. It is particularly active in late summer and autumn, for a short period of a week, and is up to mischief. It affects not only dogs but also other mammals. Dogs like to infest places that are warm, such as the armpits, groin, pinnae, or between the toes.
Treatment
You can recognize the typical clinical picture by severe skin irritation, redness, abrasions, and crusting of the skin, even if the larvae have already fallen off. Treatment should be carried out by a veterinarian or, in your case, by a dermatologist. Your private environment, possibly also the car, should be cleaned and disinfected daily to kill and remove the larvae that have fallen off.
Ticks
Ticks are known to every dog owner and every year they pose a challenge. In European latitudes, you will meet the “common wood tick” or the “Auwald tick”. Another type of tick that is becoming more and more comfortable in Germany is the brown dog tick. All three species of ticks are hot on the blood of living beings and they make no distinction whether it is a mammal or a human. Ticks transmit diseases such as:
- Lyme disease, an infectious disease that can affect various organs.
- Babesiosis is an infectious disease and is mainly transmitted via the alluvial forest tick.
- Ehrlichiosis is an infectious disease transmitted by the brown dog tick.
treatment
Once a tick has bitten, the head disappears into the tissue and the body slowly fills up to about the size of a pea. An exchange of pathogens usually only takes place after about 12 hours. Redness or swelling of the skin can be seen in many dogs and humans. If you remove the tick with tweezers or tick tweezers, there is a good chance that you can grab the animal directly between the head and body and remove it properly. It is important to remove ticks in such a way that you avoid squeezing the body, otherwise, the tick will “puke up”. If it is infected with the pathogens mentioned, it then releases them in large quantities into the host’s bloodstream. Also, please do not use oil, gasoline, or nail polish remover to remove the tick. This triggers a strong stressful situation in the tick and the risk of disease transmission is also increased. If the head does get stuck in the skin, this can lead to a foreign body reaction (inflammation), but this only means that the organism is working the foreign body out of the tissue.
Ticks like it are moist and warm. That’s why they like to stay in tall grass or wooded areas. The brown dog tick loves heated rooms or stables.
Ticks wait for their host and gallantly let themselves be stripped from their blade of grass. As a rule, they do not bite immediately but continue to wander around on their host for some time. This buys you valuable time after a walk to check your dog and yourself for ticks before they bite. The main seasons are spring, wet summer, and autumn.