Ice came down with tick borne Tularemia.
Wood tick
I pulled a tick off of both he and Maverick Saturday during the Great Falls shows. There were a gazillion prairie dogs in the airing field and I assume that's where the boys were attacked. Both ticks were lightly attached in the inner thigh/groin area, not embedded. So far Maverick seems fine.
Sunday I thought Ice was a little tired from the stress as it was our third day of getting up early and getting to shows. I know I was. By Monday I knew something was more than a little wrong, but just figured it was exhaustion and dehydration - it was hot and humid in Missoula. On Tuesday he was very sluggish in the morning classes of rally and we got last place (we are usually rally rockets and win about 99% of the time) and by the afternoon he went down at the high jump in obedience and I had a very hard time getting him up again. We made a mad dash home. He was very lethargic and his eyes had a weird dullness to them. Very scary!
I've already been through Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever with another dog - and that was awful, ruining him for life. Ice had IV fluids and will be on antibiotics for 3 months - but should be okay. This is a good reminder of how fast lightning can strike and how evil those little blood sucking buggers are!
In Montana we have two kinds of ticks - the brown dog tick and the Rocky Mountain wood tick.
It's been fairly chaotic the last couple of weeks, but now it's time to put the foo foo stuff aside, get back into the field and shoot some stuff!