The bull moose was shot out of season, and he was so small that I could have carried him on my shoulders to the truck. He literally was skin and bones, so gaunt that his ribs and pelvis suggested he hadn't eaten in a long time. And while I could have carried him out, there wasn’t a chance that I would have, for if he had one tick stuck on his flesh, he had 50,000. It was tick breeding season, and the parasites latched onto the bull and sucked away his life, one drop of blood at a time. Ticks don't care. And they’ll do the same to you and me—just as they will to our dogs.

Ticks aren’t a new thing—tick-borne diseases aren’t a recent phenomenon. In fact, they have been around for a very long time. What has changed is their widespread visibility with their increase in modern times coming from a double barrel of deforestation and human population increase. Recent studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut—38 miles west of Lyme, Connecticut from whence Lyme Disease got its name—includes a genome sequencing tool that helps scientists trace the history of tick diseases. Some of those results show that Lyme disease has been in North America for over 60,000 years. That ticks are showing up in regions that heretofore have not seen them is one problem. The fact that they’re not just carried by whitetail deer which lend their name to another pest, the Deer Tick, is another.

Scientists know now that ticks climb aboard a wide variety of hosts. Rodents and mammals like field mice or rabbits carry them, as do birds like wild turkey, pheasant, or ruffed grouse. Ticks often show up in new regions after hitching a ride with a migratory bird. If gun dogs gather ticks in an upland cover, then it’s easy to see how they’ll head south with a travelling woodcock.

Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, says that “to predict and monitor species that could spread tick-borne diseases to people, we first need to know which traits make certain animals good pathogen hosts. The research team developed a model that identified with 80 percent accuracy birds known to spread Lyme to ticks and revealed 21 species that should be prioritized for surveillance.” Birds with higher risks include thrushes and perching birds, but Han’s study also identified game birds as hosts. Any bird that primarily eat seeds and forages on the ground can come in contact with questing ticks.

But back to the moose; while ticks are impacting all animals, they’re decimating moose populations in certain regions. According to the Appalachian Mountain Club, a whopping “70 percent of moose calves in west-central Maine and northern New Hampshire died of emaciation by winter tick infestation. On average, each animal hosted 47,371 ticks.” Due to their size difference, adult bulls and cows can carry up to double if not triple that amount. As our gun dogs run in those same woods, the rapid rise of ticks can harm our setters, Labs, springers, and shorthairs.

Lyme Disease: An Incurable Gift

In many regions, the main tick focus is on the transmission of Lyme disease, an illness that can be managed but not cured. Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria called Borrelia Burgdorferi which is carried in the gut of a variety of different species of ticks. A tick bite transfers the germ to the host’s blood stream a day or two after an infected tick starts to feed. Symptoms in people usually present quickly and in a straightforward manner. Initial issues resemble those of the flu or COVID- 19: fever, chills, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headaches, and swollen lymph glands. The skin frequently breaks out in a red rash and a bullseye ring surrounds the area of the bite. Because tick borne diseases are emerging, not all cases are properly diagnosed, either. While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported annually, they believe that many cases are not properly diagnosed. They believe that the number may be over 300,000 annually.

In researching the 30,000 patients, the CDC concluded that 95 percent of the cases occurred in 14 states largely in the Northeast and Midwest. Those states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. If you hunt in those states, then the odds are you’re well aware of ticks. But don’t think you’re immune (pun intended) if your home state isn’t listed above. The Journal of Medical Entomology which studies diseases that stem from insects, found ticks carrying Lyme disease in nearly half of all counties in the United States. As ticks appear in new regions, the reported number of cases are expected to increase.

Regional Tick Differences

Research ecologist, Howard Ginsberg, has been studying the metabolism, behavior, and life cycle of black-legged ticks with colleagues at the University of Rhode Island and Michigan State University. Ginsberg’s study concluded that high humidity creates healthy tick populations, while several consecutive days of low humidity kills them off. In dry regions ticks find moisture in leaf litter.

“In the North, when you walk through the woods you’re walking right through tick habitat,” said Ginsberg, the leader of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center’s field station in Kingston, Rhode Island. “In warmer, drier regions where ticks are in leaf litter, you’re walking on top of the habitat. We think that is a crucial difference. If the climate gets warmer and drier in border zones like the Mid Atlantic, Lyme disease may eventually become less common there.

“For example, in the Chesapeake Bay region, we might see natural selection pressure on northern ticks to behave more like southern ticks and stay under cover, so we could get less Lyme disease. Controlled burns that rejuvenate primary growth reduce the amounts of leaf litter and reduces the tick’s environment.”

When to Watch for Ticks

As if ticks logging frequent flier miles to spread disease isn’t enough, many regions have variations of their own. Dr. Johnny Meyers, DVM, the owner of the Animal Wellness Center in Paducah, Kentucky says it’s important to keep your dogs as tick free as you can.

“The issue is that preseason training and hunting occurs during the tick’s most active period of the year,” he said. “Lyme disease used to be easy to identify through symptoms. Traditional blood tests were PCR, ELISA, Western Blot, and joint fluid analysis. More recently, the C-6 test and the Quantitative C6 test (QC6) detects a protein unique to the Borrelia bacteria and are highly effective,” says Meyers. “But the issue my colleagues and I are seeing is that the organisms are adapting to different circumstances and environments. While a gun dog may carry Lyme disease from a tick bite, they are presenting signs of other diseases. That makes the diagnosis more difficult.”

Meyers says you might just call all of the tick-borne diseases ‘the great pretender.’ He says that gun dogs first show signs of “fever, joint pain, intermittent lameness, and inflammation of blood vessels. But gun dogs are tough as we all know, so handlers must be vigilant. Visit your vet if you’re in doubt, for early detection is helpful for disease avoidance. We all want to avoid bigger problems such as internal bleeding, auto-immune issues, and spleen or kidney disease. Those also aren’t easily noticed.”

Preventing Tick-Borne Illnesses

Meyers says avoidance is the best way to handle tick- borne diseases.

“Test your gun dogs once a year,” he says. “Have your vet conduct a tick screening that looks specifically for the C-6 antibodies. Pre-training or pre-hunt prevention is important. There are a number of excellent medicines that veterinarians prescribe that help keep dogs safe from a tick bite. If you’re training or hunting in an area with high concentrations of ticks, you may want to add a collar to your routine or even use a permethrin-based spray. If you’re really concerned about ticks, then give your dog a post-hunt bath with a flea and tick shampoo. Oftentimes you’ll see dead ticks go down the drain and they’re ones that you missed during a tick check and comb out.”

While you’re taking care of your dog, Meyers says to take care of yourself.

“Handlers and hunters can reduce tick contacts by wearing light-colored clothing, by tucking pants into socks before pulling on your boots, and by doing a tick check after walking through tall grasses,” explained Meyers. “Ticks like warm, moist areas so they’re frequently found behind the ears, along a hairline, and in the groin or armpits. Wearing clothing treated with permethrin helps, and since they’re sometimes tough to spot, you can kill ticks by tossing your training or hunting clothes into a drier and tumble them for 10 minutes on a hot setting.”

If you train and hunt a lot, then the odds are good that your gun dog will contract a disease. “The problem with tick-borne illnesses is that they never really go away,” Meyers said. “Doxycycline commonly is prescribed by veterinarians. Treatments are daily for around a month. In most instances you’ll see an improvement in your dog. That said, there is no telling that it won’t return.”