Ancient & Medieval Historical Fiction discussion

Sorry to hear all the sad stories guys, pets are so much part of the family it's very hard when they stuffer or pass away.Hope all the happy memories outway the sadness.

Chris F wrote: "Hope all the happy memories outway the sadness."

They are for us right now. WE were only having a smile about Pip today when we walked passed a dam on our place. His favourite dam where we used to throw a stick out into the middle and he'd swim out again and again to fetch it back.
For us, moments like those made us smile, not cry. :)

Terri wrote: "
Thanks Leslie. It has been tough. We'd had Pip for over 8 years. He got a 'paralysis tick'. A tick we have over her..."

Oh My God Terri. You've had the worst week I can even imagine! That's real good news about Smudge though. I hope the calf improves. Meanwhile, You'll be in my thoughts.

Terri wrote: "Chris F wrote: "Hope all the happy memories outway the sadness."

They are for us right now. WE were only having a smile about Pip today when we walked passed a dam on our place. His favourite dam ..."

Great approach, Terri. As Dr. Seuss once said "Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened."

Thanks Leslie. That is lovely to know. :)
We certainly did wonder what we had done to have that all happen at once. Like a black cat crossed our path.
Only we don't believe in that kind of thing and we just had to blame it on it being 'one of those weeks :)

I sure do like that saying Bobby.

I LOVE that saying, Bobby!! I am going to have to remember that!!

I still miss my dog who passed away 2 summers ago now but I do smile now instead of crying over him. He was my first 'baby' and had a very special place in my heart, still does. No other dog can replace him but I do have two now that I love, but it is not the same. SMILE!!

Animals bring much to our lives. :-)

For those interested in an update on my calf with paralysis...it is a miracle!...:)..he stood up today (with a little help from some friends) and was able to stand on his own and have a drink off his mum for the first time in a week and a half. He is unsteady and is learning to walk again, but he is going to be okay.
This is rare. There are not many cases of calves getting up from paralysis tick, so we are over the moon. :D

This was him a few days ago. During full paralysis.

Terri wrote: "For those interested in an update on my calf with paralysis...it is a miracle!...:)..he stood up today (with a little help from some friends) and was able to stand on his own and have a drink off h..."

Great to hear the calf is recovering. how is Smudge doing after having the lump removed?

Hi Chris, thanks for asking. The little fellow is doing great now he is officially permitted to have the plastic cone off his head (the one dogs or cats wear so they can't lick their wound). He is happy about that! :-)
With all the animals on the mend I feel like our run of bad luck has finallh come to an end. (Touch wood!)

Terri wrote: "For those interested in an update on my calf with paralysis...it is a miracle!...:)..he stood up today (with a little help from some friends) and was able to stand on his own and have a drink off h..."

There is a Liverpool expression of thanks,

'Ta La, you're bloods worth bottling' perhaps your calf's is. As the immunity is so rare maybe your calf should be investigated for a genetic or mutant immunity.

Anyway for whatever reason Mammals 1-Insects 0 hurrah.

Hahaha! Yes, exactly. Insects are the losers this day!

We spoke to the vet and they said that they had only heard of one other case. A calf miraculously got up after two weeks. This one beat his record then. :-)
I did actually see one survive when I was about 13. I got the tick off it early and it stood up within 48 hours because its symptoms were so slight. But a full blown paralysis. I have never seen any calf get up from that. And this fellow had 6 of those nasty ticks on him.

I like to think the saviour for this fellow was all the massages and joint mobility massage we gave him. I bet not too many farmers would spend as much time on that as we did. Poor chap probably thought he was in a Turkish Bath.

Oh, and you know, we have 'your blood's worth bottling' over here too. only without the Ta La. :-)

Great news, Terri! The calf is adorable!! Glad Smudge is doing well too.

Thanks mate! It certainly was great news. Hubby and I watched him take two shaky steps and start drinking on his mum with tears in our eyes. :-) It was a wonderful moment.

She must have been wondering what took her little one so long?! Glad it's working out well. :D

You should have seen her run over when he stood up. I think she too had given up on him. It was very sweet.

Aww, so wonderful. :)

Came back from this trip to news of a different sort!! The calf is back!! Congrats on beatin' the bug and the Smudge is rebounding, Terri!! No drama here (says on knees in deep prayer of thanks). Leave again Thursday.

Glad to hear the calf it doing so well. We have paralysis ticks here in Florida too.

Thanks everyone. :-D I greatly appreciate the thoughts!!

Anne, I thought you did too. Then an American told me that the US doesn't have paralysis ticks, their ticks carry Lyme disease which cause paralysis too or something. Is that right, or do you actually have a tick thst injects a toxin?

No, we have both. I had a dog that was a stray thay I used to play with when I was having my place built. One day she was missing. The man who owned the place next to me said she got tick paralysys. I will not say what happened, because i would have taken her to the vet. I have also heard other people who have animals that it has happened to. If it's caught early and the tick found, it can be cured.

I haven't heard of the paralysis ticks but Lyme disease has been a big topic here for the last year. I assume the incidents have been getting more frequent but for the most part it isn't a big deal, obviously the longer it's left with no treatment the worse it gets. I've only heard about it in relation to humans though, it comes up at the safety meetings I go to at work.

They certainly can carry some nasty diseases those little buggers.

The Australian paralysis tick is highly toxic. For a dog or cat you have to get the tick off them in the very early stages and get them to the vet for the antiserum. Even with the antiserum, many will die. It is hugely expensive. And a lot of people end up with a big bill and no pet to bring home.

I looked up the US and this is what I found. Different species of tick, but it does appear that you have Paralysis Tick. I read this the other week and that's why I thought you guys had a species of paralysis tick also. But then when this American told me they don't I doubted what I had read.

Pathogenesis

Tick paralysis is believed to be due to toxins found in the tick's saliva that enter the bloodstream while the tick is feeding. The two ticks most commonly associated with North American tick paralysis are the Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) and the American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis); however, 43 tick species have been implicated in human disease around the world.[1] Most North American cases of tick paralysis occur from April to June, when adult Dermacentor ticks emerge from hibernation and actively seek hosts.[2] In Australia, tick paralysis is caused by the tick Ixodes holocyclus. Prior to 1989, 20 fatal cases were reported in Australia.[3]

Tick paralysis has killed thousands of animals, mainly cows and sheep, in other parts of the world[where?]. Although tick paralysis is of concern in domestic animals and livestock in the United States as well, human cases are rare and usually occur in children under the age of 10.

Tick paralysis occurs when an engorged and gravid (egg-laden) female tick produces a neurotoxin in its salivary glands and transmits it to its host during feeding. Experiments have indicated that the greatest amount of toxin is produced between the fifth and seventh day of attachment (often initiating or increasing the severity of symptoms), although the timing may vary depending on the species of tick.

Unlike Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and babesiosis, which are caused by the systemic proliferation and expansion of parasites in their hosts long after the offending tick is gone, tick paralysis is chemically induced by the tick and therefore usually only continues in its presence. Once the tick is removed, symptoms usually diminish rapidly. However, in some cases, profound paralysis can develop and even become fatal before anyone becomes aware of a tick's presence.
________________________________________________

This last line is wrong for the Australian paralysis tick. Once you get the tick off the symptoms will worsen for up to 48 hours. It definitely gets worse before it can get better.

That explains why I don't hear about them. BC has the Rocky Mountain tick but it's in the dry interior area's of the province. The Western black-legged tick is the one found where I live and it's the one carrying Lyme disease.

I see.
For us our 'Scrub Tick' (what we call paralysis tick around here) is only found within an average of 20 kilometres of the eastern coastline of Australia.
They like the high rainfall areas.

My husband and 2 kids have all had Lyme's, each of them having been caught early. My son ended up having Bell's Palsy from the Lyme but fortunately it was caught very early so he ended up having a full recovery.

Wow, that's serious. Did they get it from deer ticks?

It was often believed that Australia doesn't have Lyme disease. I think they are saying now that it may be here, but is as yet not proven to be here.

Yep, that rotten little bugger. I noticed weird red circles on Lia's body and that's how we found out with her and Mark had the typical bully's eye thing.

Do you know, do all deer ticks carry it?
And now they have had it, can they get it again from a tick or have they immunity now?

As far as I know, you don't get immunity from it. I don't know if all deer ticks carry it, I'm assuming not all. It really is a bit freaky to live with this as a constant threat but then, since there really is nothing you can do, you just hope for the best.

Frankly, I try not to ever think about it. Maybe it will go away... ;)

I have some really nice chemicals I could spray you down with. To keep the ticks off. :)

And by really nice I mean, not nice. Chemicals I use on the cattle. :D

I know you love them chemicals.

Actually, I used some essential oils on my dogs this year and they have remained flea and tick free. I use it on myself and the kids will let me spray them if necessary. It smells great and is just a water base. I had a friend who could not go out in her backyard without DEET and I gave her a bottle of my spray and it worked! She now has no trouble with those nasty 'no see 'ums' so, thanks!! But I'll stick to my 'good' stuff. You know I love my oils! :D

Sounds like you broke the lifecycle. Once you break that lifecycle you will get less and less baddies. :) We have no fleas here on our place, haven't for 8 years. We don't use anything on our dogs because we broke the lifecycle way back then.
Ticks...well...usually we search our dogs regularly for the bad tick. The tick season is ferocious this year due to extreme weather conditions last year, and we weren't vigilant enough. We lost Pip because of it.

Our one dog has also chased the feral cats off the property. I am sure they carried tons of fleas so I give him lots of credit too. The first year we moved here we ended up with a flea infestation in the house. We haven't had any problems since, thankfully!

I like the idea of remaking the life cycle. I never realized that!

You calf has earned the right to be re-baptized Lazarus,I think.

Terri wrote: "They certainly can carry some nasty diseases those little buggers.

The Australian paralysis tick is highly toxic. For a dog or cat you have to get the tick off them in the very early stages and ge..."

Thanks for all the great info about the ticks, Terri. I knew we had them in Florida, not only because of my own experience but also friend's experiences.

Simona wrote: "You calf has earned the right to be re-baptized Lazarus,I think."


Haha. Yeah. That's a good idea for a name. Before the tick incident we were thinking about not selling him, but instead growing him up as a bull. If we keep him, we will name him that. :-)

You are welcome, Anne. :-)

I'm glad that your calf recovered, Terri. When I worked in small animal practice in Sydney, I saw many dogs with tick paralysis. Not nice at all.I'd never seen it before.

Lyme disease has only been recognised in the UK in dogs over the last 10-15 years or so, so it's not surprising maybe that it's only being diagnosed in Oz. If a disease isn't looked for, it isn't found! It's a hideous disease too, in humans as well as animals. If it isn't treated early as in the case of Tasha's kids, then it can become a permanently disabling condition with things like polyarthritis, heart problems and so on (a bit like Brucellosis, if you've heard of that in cattle and humans).

Oh yes. Brucellosis I know. When I was a kid the government had a strategy to wipe out Brucellosis in herds. It worked. They went farm by farm testing your cattle. If it was detected they took your cattle and destroyed them. This was in the 70's and they paid you a paltry sum per head. They took nearly all my parents herd and left them with 5. It nearly broke them. Necessary, but sad. If the government paid more it would have been less brutal an event.
I was too young to remember it thank goodness.

When I see the destruction your FMD causes. I feel just terrible for you guys.

You worked a Sydney surgery? That's cool. :-) Yes, i can imagine you saw a lot of Paralysis tick in dogs down there as they get it as bad as us.
We are stunned that this calf pulled through, but I do not know if you saw in my post, my dog got a tick a couple weeks ago and we had to put him down. The symptoms presented so quickly. The tick was barely engorged. We had to put him down. He was choking and his lungs were clearly filling up. It was awful.
I hope you had some survivors at the Sydney practice?

Oh, how sad about your dog. Sorry to hear that.
Brucellosis isn't much fun either. I tested thousands of cattle for that when I worked in Ireland, but never saw a case, thankfully. Loads of TB, though, and some culling of entire herds. Not fun for the farmers at all.

Yes, we had a good few survivors in Sydney. Picked up early, and gave them the antitoxin.

FMD, agh. I did a year of that duty in 2001/2. I supervised the culling of more than 30,000 animals. A savage time that I never want to see again.

Ben wrote: "Oh, how sad about your dog. Sorry to hear that.
Brucellosis isn't much fun either. I tested thousands of cattle for that when I worked in Ireland, but never saw a case, thankfully. Loads of TB, tho..."

Well, let me think. It could have been TB that they took the herd for...I have heard the 'legendary' story from Dad so many times you'd think I could get that right. Maybe they tested for both and they pinged on TB. Can't rightly recall.

Oh no. You had to go through that? With FMD? Man, I wouldn't want that job in a million years. Hard enough to see the waste of livestock, but the human impact. That would have been hard to cope with.
We run approx 120 head. If they were all destroyed. Argh. Perish the thought. That would kill me inside. Especially since so many of our cattle we 'know' as personalities. Some verge on being pets. :/

I am glad your animals are doing ok.

Thanks Linda.

We reached over 800 members this week. Considering this month we are only 12 months old, I think that is fantastic.

Luckily, not all 800 are active. Lol. That would be out of control. :-)