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Katie Woolf spoke with NT Veterinary Services Senior Vet Alex Burleigh · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: Mix one O four point nine dot com dotu for
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  Speaker 1: all the latest news and information Now three sixty with
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  Speaker 1: Katie Wolf. Everyone is listening Mix one O four point
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  Speaker 1: nine one Now.
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  Speaker 2: Over the weekend, I learned that the vets are raising
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  Speaker 2: some concern over a fatal canine disease that is apparently
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  Speaker 2: were killing thousands of dogs in the Northern Territory. And
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  Speaker 2: joining us on the line to tell us a little
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  Speaker 2: bit more is the NT Veentory Services Senior VET Alex Burley.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Alex.
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  Speaker 3: Good day Katie.
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  Speaker 2: Alex, tell us a little bit about this illness and
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  Speaker 2: what exactly it is.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so lick. Here's a type of bacteria which lives
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  Speaker 3: inside the immune cells of the body, and it's a
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  Speaker 3: very very nafty little bacteria at effects dogs and it's
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  Speaker 3: spread between dogs by ticks. Now, this disease can cause
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  Speaker 3: a range of symptoms from you know, just being simply
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  Speaker 3: just being off color, just losing way to a little
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  Speaker 3: bit and absent to some bleeding disorders. They can get
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  Speaker 3: bleeding noose, bleeding elsewhere around the body, can cause a cough,
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  Speaker 3: can cause cloudy sore eyes, just you know, the dogs
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  Speaker 3: sat sometimes be not quite right and get a fever,
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  Speaker 3: and that's the early stages of the disease. Then they
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  Speaker 3: can go into what we call the carrier stage, which
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  Speaker 3: is where their immune system, their platelets, their clotting factors
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  Speaker 3: are just a bit low, but they appear to be fine,
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  Speaker 3: and then sometimes a few weeks to a few months
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  Speaker 3: to a few years later, it can cause some really
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  Speaker 3: severe disease where it can either knock out the kidneys
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  Speaker 3: or knock out the immune system altogether. And it's a horrible,
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  Speaker 3: horrible disease we've you know, So it's easily treated I
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  Speaker 3: court early. If it's left too late, then it's near
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  Speaker 3: near impossible to treat. And the number of cases has
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  Speaker 3: been just skyrocketing territory. In one community that we visited recently,
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  Speaker 3: it was almost like a dog at Geddon, you know.
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  Speaker 3: We had half the dogs in that community passway over
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  Speaker 3: six month period from this nasty disease. So it is
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  Speaker 3: out there, it is causing such a widespread illness amongst
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  Speaker 3: other dogs. But look, if you have good tick control,
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  Speaker 3: that's a key thing right now. So we're just urging
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  Speaker 3: people to be very vigilant with tick control and be
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  Speaker 3: vigilant for early science caught early, it can be treated.
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  Speaker 2: And are there any parts of the Northern territory where
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  Speaker 2: this has been more prevalent at this point?
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  Speaker 3: Look we were seeing we only learned about it in
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  Speaker 3: June last year. But yes, look it's actually all throughout
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  Speaker 3: the territory and we find that in some areas where
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  Speaker 3: there's high levels of ticks, yes there's more disease. So
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  Speaker 3: if there's large levels of ticks in your area, then
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  Speaker 3: you need to be more you need to be careful
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  Speaker 3: and that's a very important thing that we've seen as
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  Speaker 3: in Alice Springs we've seen you close to one hundred cases.
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  Speaker 3: We've seen over one hundred and fifty cases in Cantherine,
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  Speaker 3: we've seen hundreds of cases in remote communities, and we've
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  Speaker 3: had reports of many many cases up in Darwin. So
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  Speaker 3: it's unfortunately it's all throughout the territory, it's throughout Northern
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  Speaker 3: Wa and it's making it soon not to be making
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  Speaker 3: its way into Queensland, then it's already started making its
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  Speaker 3: way into South Australia.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, I mean, I know so many of us dog
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  Speaker 2: owners and absolutely adore our dogs. What do we need
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  Speaker 2: to look out for and how can we prevent this
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  Speaker 2: from happening.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so look, any of those symptoms are previously mentioned.
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  Speaker 3: So the most common one is just your dog's not
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  Speaker 3: quite right and it's losing weight, or you know he's
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  Speaker 3: been off his for a few days, or you see
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  Speaker 3: both eyes clouding up. Any of those early symptoms, you
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  Speaker 3: should go straight to your bet and get a blood test.
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  Speaker 3: Then there are sort of other ones like you know, sight, cough,
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  Speaker 3: joint pain, swollen glands, et cetera. Those are just early
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  Speaker 3: early signs and just get your dog tested to the
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  Speaker 3: for prevention we do. Our recommendations have changed compared to
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  Speaker 3: what we used to recommend about it a year and
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  Speaker 3: a half two years ago. So in the past we
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  Speaker 3: just said that one of those chews like next Guard
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  Speaker 3: or Provector, any of those would be great. But we
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  Speaker 3: now know that one in four dogs on these choos
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  Speaker 3: will still get this disease. So what we're now recommending
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  Speaker 3: is something that repels ticks. And the only two probes
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  Speaker 3: which have been shown to repeltics are Soresto or advantics,
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  Speaker 3: and they will keep the ticks from buying. They're about
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  Speaker 3: ninety eight percent effective. But we do recommend something as
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  Speaker 3: back up because even though those choose one in four
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  Speaker 3: dog still got infected, it still stopped three out of
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  Speaker 3: four dogs from being infected from the right. So they
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  Speaker 3: act as a great backup.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's the best way to go here is
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  Speaker 2: just to make sure that you are treating your dogs
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  Speaker 2: for ticks, but doing it with those products.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, if you're in a high tich area,
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  Speaker 3: would also recommend spraying your yard so that way, that
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  Speaker 3: way there's no ticks in the area. The big thing
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  Speaker 3: about this disease compared to the other diseases is that
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  Speaker 3: the other diseases usually took one or two days of
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  Speaker 3: tick feeding for it to transmit from the tick to
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  Speaker 3: the dog, so that the choos were great for that.
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  Speaker 3: But now with this new disease, it takes as little
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  Speaker 3: as three hours of tick feeding for it to transmit
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  Speaker 3: from the tick to the dog. Wow, that means it's
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  Speaker 3: a really rapid spread yep. And additionally, the ticks also
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  Speaker 3: passed the disease off to the baby ticks, so once
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  Speaker 3: it's in the area, it's probably going to be there
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  Speaker 3: for good.
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  Speaker 2: And so the advice really is make sure that you
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  Speaker 2: are you're keeping a really close eye on your dog
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  Speaker 2: if you notice any of these changes as well, you
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  Speaker 2: really need to probably get in contact with the vet.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and look early treatment is great. There is
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  Speaker 3: no vaccine for this disease, you know. Thankfully we've got
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  Speaker 3: one for COVID, but unfortunately no vaccine has worked for
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  Speaker 3: earli here. So you really need to use all these
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  Speaker 3: things and if you catch it early, get your dog
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  Speaker 3: treated well.
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  Speaker 2: NT Vetory Services, Senior Vet Alex Burley, I really appreciate
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  Speaker 2: your time this morning. Thanks so much for making us
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  Speaker 2: aware of this.
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  Speaker 3: You're welcome, Katie, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: And that number if you're keen to call through eight
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  Speaker 2: nine four one one O four nine. Like I said,
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  Speaker 2: I know that so many of us are dog owners
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  Speaker 2: and absolutely adore our dogs, so this is something i'd
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  Speaker 2: never heard of before. Earlicka and yeah, by the sounds
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  Speaker 2: of it, should be really keeping quite a close eye
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  Speaker 2: on our dogs and keeping a really close eye to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that there aren't those ticks, because that is
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  Speaker 2: how it can spread