Really poorly young dog - tick fever familiar to anyone?

[shoutymcshoutsmum]

My young pointer has been really sick since Thursday night. I took him to the vet yesterday and told him I had removed a tick on Monday, having been in Hampshire over the Easter holidays).

He just lies there whining and shaking a little. He is eating but not drinking. He doesn't move if he can help it but will walk shakily over to the dog bowl.

The vet took his temperature and was surprised it was normal. He listened to his heart and said he had developed a heart murmur. He took bloods and then returned with a "Good News, his bloods are good." The vet then said he had tick fever and prescribed Oxycare (a broad spectrum antibiotic) for 15 days. He asked me to return after the course to check his heart murmur.

The thing is he is no different today. So scared...

Apparently the blood tests can be unreliable. If your dog has been in a tick area recently, and suddenly has a
migrating lameness, and temp of 105+ and off their food - go straight to
vet and DEMAND doxycycline. Synulox is not effective.

(This info is from a reliable source - sadly they lost their dog.) If I were you I'd take him to the emergency vet. I hope he'll be OK.

Oxycare is oxytetracycline which belongs to the same antibiotic family as doxycycline, but is not the drug of choice for Lyme disease. Either Doxycycline or Amoxcycline are.
Regular in house bloods will not show up Lyme disease, you need to send out a blood sample and a blood smear to a specialist lab who will do ELIZA testing and take 7 to 10 days to get results.
A recent survey showed that 1/3 of New Forest ticks carry Lyme disease.

I'd be back to the vet today - no question at all. Insist on ELIZA testing and in the meantime insist on either of the preferred Lyme disease ABs. It may not be Lyme's - after all he doesn't have a temperature, but in the short term I am not sure it can do any harm to treat it as though it is.

Sorry your dog is unwell . Has he got any skin lesions as the New Forest is one of the areas associated with 'Alabama Rot' . Might be worth checking that out .

Thanks everyone. I did look for lesions but couldn't see any. I can't believe how bad it has got.

Hi everyone. An update about my dog. After some discussion with my husband, we decided to wait to see if the antibiotics made a difference with a little more time and we will see our vet tomorrow. He is still definitely not well, still limping on one back leg and whining and shaking at intervals. However, saying that we took him out to the woods and he was really happy whilst he was there. I didn't know whether that was a good idea or not (still don't) but got the feeling he wanted to have some fresh air. He was definitely more subdued than usual and wouldn't play with other young dogs but was happy to retrieve the ball thrown by my DH repeatedly. In the end, I took the ball away from my DH as I thought that I wouldn't make a sick child run around!

No change this morning. He won't now put any weight on his back leg. Vet still not open...

Just to throw another option in here- no chance of adders in the area you were in the other day? We have them locally and i have seen similar symptoms quite a few times. Hope you get your boy sorted.

Sorry- should have said I have seen similar symptoms from adder bites.

I saw the vet. Dog still got a normal temperature and no inflammation in the joints, so he is not showing the symptoms you would expect with Lymes disease. He has given me an anti-inflammatory in case that helps the obvious discomfort he is in and has send off bloods for testing for Lymes disease.

The test for Lymes disease has come back negative. They are thinking it might be meningitis.