Dog lice

[sourland]

The title says it all. In a lifetime of working with dogs

including 7 or 8 years working at a veterinary clinic I had only ever seen one case of dog lice. That was until yesterday. One of my beagles for the past couple of weeks has had a problem with skin irritations, almost like 'hot spots'. Superb diagnostician that I am, I decided that the Taste of the Wild that is part of his diet was too 'hot' for him and he was evidencing food allergies. (This in spite of the fact that it has been part of his diet his entire life.) Cut back on the TOW in his diet and topically treated the lesions with a product that works well for me. Last night I noticed Max scratching vigorously and said, "What the heck." Upon examining him more closely, I determined that he indeed had dog lice

, "What the he--?"

Today I cleaned his sleeping box and those of the 2 dogs adjacent to him, dusted them with a Permethrin powder, and added fresh bedding. I then bathed Max with Adam's Flea and Tick shampoo and he is presently in the house drying off - he loves it his life goal is to eventually become someone's house pet. Once he is dry, I will topically treat any lesions with the fungicidal/germicidal solution that I use. I plan on repeating this process in 7 to 10 days. Anyone have experience with these critters, and is there anything that you would recommend that I should do?

As best I can guess, he picked up the infestation from the kennels at one of the clubs where we attended a field trial. None of the other dogs, including Poor Richard who went to 20 more trials than Max, are exhibiting any signs of infestation. A visual examination of all dogs turned up no lice.

Any experience/input greatly appreciated.

Thanks, George

 

[carolinagirl58]

I have never heard of dog lice! I guess it makes sense though, since other animals are subject to species-specific lice. I just didn't know they existed! Ewwwwwwww

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Sourland, this website is basically what we used at the shelter. We used a combination of different things depending on the situation, and they all worked pretty well. We had the biggest problem with fleas and mites, but lice are so similar to mites that when it comes to treatment, I consider them one and the same.

http://www.vet.bc.ca/site/view/54286_Lice.pml

Personally, I loved Revolution. It is not labelled for use with lice, but that stuff works well. I posted the link to the website because it explains it better than I could. Also, you could use Dawn dish detergent in between treatments. That stuff is POTENT! Advantage works well too, but I feel like Revolution prevents/treats a wider range of things.

To get rid of them in the runs/kennels, you can use DE or move him into a temporary kennel and put down seven dust for a few days, then clean it out and put down fresh bedding. Some people use Sevin 5 dust to treat external parasites, but while I use it on chickens, I would be a bit wary to use it directly on a dog.

Also, for the lesions, I'm not sure what you are using now, but I just wanted to let you know that a product called Furazone works wonders! I use it on everything from horses and chickens, to dogs and parrots. In the summer it keeps flies off the affected areas and helps to heal up wounds like you would not believe!

Best of luck to you! The tricky part is getting all the eggs!

(ETA the website!)

 

[featherfinder]

I took my girl to the vet and they decided her flea medictaion was the wrong one for her size. They gave her a pill that killed them all in 24-48 hours and then told me to bath her with flea treatment to remove the dead bugs and give her her new medication every month like normal. She has not had anything ever since.

 

[1muttsfan]

As said above, get all the nits (eggs) off, or you will be visited again. Just like kids with head lice

 

[sourland]

CD13, thanks for the site. Pretty much common sense management as with any parasite infestation. I was unaware that lice may serve as vectors for tapeworms. I knew that this was a possibility with fleas, but was unaware of the possibility with lice. With animals there is always something to learn. When you worked at the shelter, how frequently did you see lice infestations? As I mentioned in my initial post this is only the second infestation that I have encountered in MANY years of dealing with dogs.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quote:
We mostly saw lice, mite, and flea infestations with new dogs coming in. We'd treat them and bathe them right away. Since we didn't have room for quarantine sometimes the other dogs would be affected, but since they were mostly updated on their monthly treatments, it wasn't too often. We did try to rotate wormers used though so the bugs couldn't build a tolerance to them. That was hard sometimes too because we mostly used what we had on hand.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. If the dogs have access to outside runs or kennels, they probably picked them up that way. Sometimes some dogs are just affected and others are not! I'm not sure why some are more susceptible than others though. It may just have been something that dog got into the others didn't, or he may just taste better! LOL I was only at the shelter four months, but I've been told some seasons are just worse than others.