Gandalf and His Tiny Friends From His Adventure

By Kay Hisano | Dated March 21, 2023

Gandalf, a 10-year-old Burmese was booked in for a consultation for having multiple spots and scabs all over his body. He is usually an indoor-only cat, but had escaped to explore the outdoors for a couple of minutes the day before. Little did he know that those couple of minutes was all it took for him to be covered in tiny ticks. On arrival to the clinic we could feel very small bumps all over his right forelimb and around his chest. After having a good look we could see and feel that his body was covered in larval ticks!!!

Now, I’m sure everyone has heard the importance of prevention for paralysis ticks, but you might be wondering what larval ticks are. Larval ticks, also known as grass ticks, are the earliest stage of a tick’s life cycle outside of the egg, paralysis ticks are the adult life stage of these larval ticks. How can you tell the difference between paralysis ticks and larval ticks?

Paralysis Tick

• 3mm-1cm diameter
• Pale grey to very dark blue-grey body color
• Usually in a low number (1-3) over a pets whole body

Larval Tick

• 1-2mm diameter
• Red-purple body
• Usually in a large number at a time in a small area of the pets whole body

Although these larval ticks do not cause paralysis in our pets they can still cause skin irritation and severe discomfort for your pets and a large infestation of larval ticks can be extremely unpleasant to deal with.

Due to the size of the larval ticks and often the large burden of them, the treatment of choice for these ticks is a Frontline spray. Once sprayed with frontline spray the ticks that are attached to the body will die and fall off within 48 hours. At the vet we will often use pain relief medication or anti-inflammatories to help with the discomfort.

Keeping your pets up to date with tick prevention will prevent all different stages of ticks from causing any harm or discomfort to your pet. If you need any advice or further information regarding the different preventatives, feel free to give us a ring or ask us a question during consultations, we would love to help guide you.

After a full spray down of the body with Frontline Spray, all the larval ticks that were attached to Gandalf had died and fallen off by the next day. However, it took Gandalf another 24 hours to get back to his active normal self. Likely due to the burden of the high load of ticks. You can see all the spots where the larval ticks used to be attached to his forelimb, and a handsome picture of Gandalf a week after his larval tick incident.