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DENVER -- Sadie Martin didn’t take her dogs to the mountains. She didn’t take them anywhere but walks around her downtown Denver neighborhood and to the occasional dog park.
“I was a little shocked and concerned,” she said, when she went to pet her pup and found ticks. “Clustered together,” she described.
Martin says she was surprised, because not only is Colorado not known for ticks, Denver definitely isn’t.
“Because of the elevation and the cold weather.”
Yet her dogs brought multiple home. So she called the vet.
“She had figured that they walked through a nest of babies due to the size of the ticks,” Martin described.
The pet owner decided to ask around and post on the NextDoor app, and within minutes other owners were coming forward with similar stories.
“Some others had found ticks on their dogs and same thing - they had only been to dog parks or walks around their neighborhood.”
So Denver7 asked the professionals. The best advice is to keep your pets out of dense vegetation like tall grass, especially in areas you don’t know. Use tick control if possible, like collars or sprays. And if your pet has symptoms (such as vomiting, unsteadiness, weakness - especially in the hind limbs, among others), contact a veterinarian immediately.
