Winnipeg Free Press: Tick season means pets at risk of Lyme disease
It’s roughly the size of the nail on your pinky finger, but it can pose a huge threat to you and your pets.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet ixodes scapularis, better known in Manitoba as the blacklegged tick, a creepy little bloodsucker with the potential to spread Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that typically resides in deer, mice, squirrels and other small animals.
“It’s a small bug but a potentially big threat,” celebrity pet expert Jarod Miller warned during a visit earlier this month to the Free Press News Caf©. “We’re encouraging people to protect their pets by being aware that ticks carry Lyme disease. Only about 25 per cent of Canadians are even aware of what Lyme disease is.”
Best known for dozens of appearances on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America and Conan O’Brien’s shows, the media-savvy American zoologist has become sort of the Sidney Crosby of the animal world.