I decided to take the family on a hiking/ fishing trip out on the Ice Age trail today. I packed up the fishing gear, the girls, the wife, my 4 year old Weimaraner Gaius and headed north to my new found fishing spot. Every thing seemed to be going fine until we were about a mile into the hike. I was leading the way and my wife yelled out that the dog threw up and just collapsed. I walked back to find Gaius just laying in the grass wouldn’t even budge. This dog never lays down, he is ALWAYS moving, so I knew that something was wrong. At first I thought that he might have over heated, so I picked him up and carried him to the water. This is where things went from bad to worse. He continued to throw up and started to have diarrhea. At this point I sent my wife back for help. After about 20 minutes of dousing him in cold lake water Gaius finally got up and was walking around. However, his diarrhea was increasingly turning to a bloody discharge. Since he was up and walking, we started our way back to the car. It took us about 35 minutes, but Gaius made it! I rushed him to the vet and found out that he has lymes disease. They were not sure about the blood but are keeping him overnight.

Wow, glad you were able to get him to a vet. Hopes and prayers for his recovery.

This also makes me glad I found out about a lymes vaccine for dogs...

That is from deer ticks, right? I did not know that it affected dogs. Please keep us posted. All best wishes for Gaius! With a name like that he deserves it.
Peter.

Hopefully Gaius will make a full recovery.

There are lots of good flea/tick meds/applications available that work well and go a long ways to avoiding this type situation.

Good luck with your dog and his recovery.

It is a HORRIBLE disease and we live in tick/Lyme central in the upper midwest.

The disease can come from other than deer ticks. The information regarding lyme is actually better for animals than humans! Research is linking MANY diseases to a relationship with lymes.

Plus there is another disease called anaplasmosis (don't know the proper spelling) that is just as bad or worse.

They are both bad for dogs as well as humans. We use Frontline on the dogs all the time and plenty of anti tick methods on us EVERY time we go into the woods. (Deet sprays, tick gaters, etc)

Plus, we use a tick comb on them after we come out of the woods. I have literally combed dozens out of a single dog after a single trip through the woods grouse hunting. The dogs now expect out tail gate combing sessions before they get back into their kennels.

I use a steel comb so I can burn the little tick bastards with a lighter as I comb them out of the dog's fur.

At least once a year the dogs test positive and it's antibiotics for several weeks.

Luckily my GSPs have such short hair it's relatively easy to see even the smallest of ticks. Still can't get them all.

WOW!!! I have to say that I have never heard of a case of Lymes coming on so suddenly with such traumatic symptoms. Personally, I am uncomfortable with Lyme's being the sole diagnosis. Could be...but I would be looking further.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery. i mention this only because it's a resurgent threat in my area righ now with very similar symptoms - that is Parvovirus. Get you dogs vaccinated or if previously vaccinated have them titered regularly to check for adequate immune response if you don't beleive in possible over vaccination.

This story on parvo was on the news last night and it appears that there is a significant outbreak right now in Southcentral PA. 8 dogs reported dead near Harrisburg yesterday.

So Gaius still was sick enough that he is spending another night at the vet. This whole mess is a bit of a surprise to me, we use Frontline, kept him current on all his shots (including a Lymes vaccination) and I check him every time we go out. The veterinarian explained that Lymes has been overpowering the vaccination in these parts and Frontline does a poor job at repelling ticks, go figure. So far he has only tested positive for lymes and anaplazmosis. even though the symptoms mach parvo, he tested negative for it and has had the vaccination. The vet suspects some kind of poisoning, though he hasn’t gotten into anything as of late. I know things with our neighbor haven’t been kosher lately (we put up tree fort that they weren’t thrilled about. ) maybe they poisoned him?

I just got Gaius home You can really see that he is still not 100% but he is better. The hard part now will be getting him to swallow 5 pills two times a day!

Good news!
Perhaps a little hint that if the dog was poisoned, then lead poisoning will follow?
Peter.

had a friend whose dog got poisoned. he got into waffrin (rat poison) in a neighbors garage. fortunately he got to the vet in time.