I discovered a completely new and novel threat today. I was always under the impression that fleas were my biggest enemy.  Bea's had fleas before, and tells stories of the pesky critters keeping you up at night crawling all over your skin.  We've had numerous visitors here at the clinic come in with similar complaints; so itchy they can't sleep, chewing holes in their own skin!  Mother sends them with something called  Comfortis.  It tastes like dirt, but you won't see a flea on me!   Today I realized that fleas are nothing compared to the other crawling creature - the tick.

Jojo, the 85 lb american bull dog was carried in today.  He seemed happy enough, panting and looking around.  As mother looked him over he told me that he'd had the strangest past few days, "It started on Monday, I kept tripping over my feet, by Wednesday I couldn't walk without falling down and today my back legs weren't working at all!  I feel fine, nothing hurts, my legs just won't move!" Jojo panted.  Mother was definitely intrigued, and she told Jojo's parents, "Usually this type paralysis is from a ruptured disk in the back, but that almost always causes severe pain.  Jojo acts like he's perfectly fine otherwise."  No sooner had mother finished explaining disk problems than I heard her say "Ah Ha!" as she pinched a brown ball from off of Jojo's skin.  "It's an engorged tick.... that would explain everything.  Some ticks carry a toxin that will cause tick paralysis.  If this is the problem then Jojo should start walking again in a few days" mother gushed encouragingly.  "You mean ticks can paralyze you?" Jojo's parents asked in disbelief.  "Absolutely, I've seen about three cases of it in my career.  If the tick stays attached long enough, the dogs can even die.  Lucky we found the tick.  Now Jojo stands to make a fully recovery" mother advised.  Patient Pam and Sweet Sally then went about the task of giving Jojo a bath in something called Frontline spray, which was supposed to kill any other ticks that mother didn't find.

Even though that spray smelled really bad, I was hoping that mother would bring some my way.  I cannot have my legs paralyzed by some creepy crawly bug.  That would definitely ruin my signature whole body wag that everyone loves so much.