Dog health: vector-borne
Ehrlichiosis in dogs (Ehrlichia canis): the signs, the tests, and what the Indian evidence says
Ehrlichia canis was found in 20.6 percent of 525 dogs across four Indian cities and in 56 of 178 pet dogs at a Bhubaneswar teaching hospital. This page gives the three phases, the signs that mean the clinic today, what each test can and cannot prove, and what the Indian evidence says about recovery and relapse.
Quick answer
Ehrlichiosis in dogs is a tick-borne infection with the bacterium Ehrlichia canis, spread by the brown dog tick, that causes fever, low platelets and bleeding, and then often goes silent for months while the dog stays infected. Ehrlichia canis was found in 20.6 percent of 525 dogs across four Indian cities by PCR, and in 56 of 178 pet dogs in Bhubaneswar. Treatment is a tetracycline-class antibiotic with supportive care, and your nearby vet sets the drug, the amount and the length of the course.
This guide is general information for Indian pet owners and is not a diagnosis. Always consult a registered veterinarian near you before acting on anything you read here, and treat any sudden change in your pet's condition as urgent.
Signs of Ehrlichiosis (canine monocytic ehrlichiosis)
The 9 signs to watch for are listed below. Any one of them is a reason to consult your nearby vet; none of them is a diagnosis.
- Fever, with a dog that goes quiet and stops eating
- A nosebleed, or pinpoint red spots on the gums or belly
- Pale gums, or black tarry stools
- Swelling of one or both hind legs
- A cloudy or red eye, or bumping into furniture
- Weight loss over weeks in a dog that carried ticks
- Enlarged glands under the jaw or behind the knees
- Lameness, wobbliness or a stiff, painful neck
- Bruising after an injection or a blood sample
Breeds on this site that document this condition
Each breed page below carries the figure for this condition with its denominator and its source. The 6 breeds listed are the ones on this site that document it, not a ranking of risk.
India has the densest published evidence on this condition of any country this site covers. Ehrlichia canis reached 39.5 percent of 162 Delhi dogs and 27.2 percent of 162 Mumbai dogs by PCR in 2008, and zero in 201 dogs across Sikkim and Ladakh; a Bhubaneswar teaching hospital found it in 56 of 178 pet dogs, and a Kolkata state centre in 97 of 584. The brown dog tick breeds indoors here, so exposure is year-round, and a 442-dog Andhra Pradesh series measured 12.64 percent infection in dogs off tick control against 6.98 percent in dogs kept on it.
What ehrlichiosis in dogs is, and which dogs get it
Ehrlichiosis in dogs is an infection of the white blood cells by Ehrlichia canis, a bacterium that lives inside cells and reaches the dog in the saliva of the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena. Indian owners call it tick fever, a name that also covers babesiosis and anaplasmosis, which is why a vet tests rather than treating the name. Tick fever in dogs in India covers all four pathogens; this page is the Ehrlichia canis half of it.
The bacterium infects monocytes, the white cells that patrol for infection, so the formal name is canine monocytic ehrlichiosis. Transmission starts faster than owners expect, because Rhipicephalus sanguineus begins passing E. canis within 3 hours of attaching.
The Indian numbers are the reason this page exists. In the only multi-city Indian survey that identified both the ticks and the pathogens, 525 dogs were sampled in Delhi, Mumbai, Sikkim and Ladakh between June and September 2008, and PCR found E. canis in 20.6 percent of them. The city split is stark. Ehrlichia canis reached 39.5 percent of 162 Delhi dogs and 27.2 percent of 162 Mumbai dogs, against 0 percent in Sikkim and Ladakh, and every one of the 796 ticks collected in Mumbai and Delhi was a Rhipicephalus, the tick our tick prevention guide for dogs in India is built around.
Read 20.6 percent as city pressure rather than your dog's risk, because those 525 dogs were 77 percent strays and 23 percent shelter dogs, examined whether or not they were ill. The four sites were chosen for climate, Delhi as a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical region, Mumbai as tropical, Sikkim as subtropical highland and Ladakh as a montane region, and the two cool sites are where the count fell to zero.
Which dogs in India test positive
Four Indian risk factors carry denominators, and three are about management rather than the animal. Age was the only factor to reach significance in eastern India; housing, visible ticks and tick control each separated the groups in the south, where dogs on tick control had an odds ratio of 0.281, 95 percent confidence interval 0.153 to 0.514 Kopparthi J, Chennuru S, Vukka CR. The five groups with the highest measured Indian risk are listed below.
- Puppies and dogs under a year, positive in 23 of 51 dogs in the Bhubaneswar series.
- Kennel and working dogs, positive in 12 of 36 in Andhra Pradesh, against 25 of 335 pet dogs.
- Dogs carrying visible ticks, positive in 45 of 55 in the same series.
- Street dogs and new rescues, from a Chennai population in which 229 of 230 dogs carried ticks and 16.1 percent carried E. canis.
- Dogs off tick control, positive in 45 of 356 (12.64 percent) against 6 of 86 dogs kept on it (6.98 percent).
The three phases: acute, subclinical and chronic
Ehrlichiosis moves through three phases in sequence, acute, subclinical and chronic, after an incubation period of 1 to 3 weeks. The phase a dog is in decides what an owner sees, what the blood shows, and how the vet judges the outlook. The owner-facing pages that rank for this query call them three stages rather than three phases, and they mean the same sequence.
| Phase | How long it lasts | What the owner sees | What the blood shows | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acute | 2 to 4 weeks | Fever, dullness, no appetite, swollen glands, a nosebleed or pinpoint bleeding into the skin | Low platelets with mild anaemia | Signs can fade on their own, treated or not |
| Subclinical | Months to years | Nothing at all | Platelet counts often still below normal | The dog looks well and the organism is still there |
| Chronic | Open-ended once it starts | Weight loss, bleeding, pale gums, eye disease, swollen hind legs | Pancytopenia and bone marrow hypoplasia | The severe form, and the outlook is grave |
The acute phase is what brings an Indian dog to a clinic. Of the 56 positive dogs in Bhubaneswar, every one was lethargic, 75 percent had fever, 69.64 percent had gone off food, 46.4 percent had a nosebleed and 16.07 percent had hind limb oedema; corneal opacity and uveitis also appeared, which is why a cloudy eye in a dog that has had ticks is a blood test and not an eye drop.
Why the subclinical phase is the trap
The subclinical phase is the trap because the dog looks cured while the organism is still present. Acute signs can fade on their own, treated or not, and dogs that improve may stay persistent subclinical carriers for months and years, with platelet counts often still below normal. Ehrlichial DNA has been amplified from dogs 34 months after infection.
India has measured this directly. In a two-year study of working dogs in organised kennels, 24 of the 46 positive dogs were apparently healthy, and the authors concluded that Indian prevalence work should screen healthy dogs and not only sick ones. Not every dog takes all three steps, and the MSD Veterinary Manual calls the chronic form uncommon.
What a relapse looks like
A relapse looks like the acute phase returning weeks or months later, from two causes that need different answers. The first is re-emergence of an infection never eliminated, which immunosuppressive doses of glucocorticoids can trigger in a dog showing no signs. The second is a fresh tick bite, because infection leaves no lasting immunity. Telling them apart is difficult, which is why the tick routine does not stop when the antibiotics do.
When a fever after ticks means the clinic today
Take a dog to a veterinary clinic the same day if it runs a fever, goes quiet or stops eating within three weeks of carrying ticks, because those are the presenting signs of the acute phase in the Indian case series and the treatable window is the early one Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena.
Bleeding is the sign owners underestimate. It happens in dogs with only mild thrombocytopenia, because the platelets that remain do not work properly, so a nosebleed or pinpoint red spots on the gums can appear before any count looks alarming. In Bhubaneswar, 46.4 percent of positive dogs had a nosebleed, and the three that died had bleeding into the mucous membranes, an enlarged spleen and liver, and ticks still on the skin.
Ehrlichiosis is not an emergency in itself, and its severe phase is. Go to a clinic immediately, and call ahead, for bleeding that does not stop from the nose, mouth or gums; gums that are white or grey with fast breathing; a dog too weak to stand or one that collapses; black tarry stools with weakness; or a sudden change in vision or a painful, cloudy eye. Pronounced pancytopenia is a recorded risk factor for death in canine ehrlichiosis, so these signs buy nothing by waiting.
The second reason not to wait is co-infection, which is the Indian norm. In the four-city survey, 39 percent of infected dogs carried more than one pathogen, and 28 percent of Delhi's positives carried both E. canis and Hepatozoon canis. In 584 Kolkata dogs, 72.9 percent carried two or more pathogens, and among Indian working dogs, concurrent E. canis and Babesia gibsoni infections were mostly fatal. A vet who finds one pathogen looks for the others, and babesiosis in dogs is the one most often found alongside this.
How ehrlichiosis is diagnosed, and what each test proves
To diagnose ehrlichiosis, a vet combines three things that answer different questions: a platelet count to show that something is attacking the blood, an antibody test to show exposure, and PCR to show the organism itself Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena. No single one of them settles the case.
| Test | What it answers | What it cannot do | What Indian series found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platelet count on a complete blood count | Flags the commonest abnormality in this disease | Not specific to Ehrlichia | A count below 109 x 10 to the 4 per cubic mm predicted E. canis in 584 Kolkata dogs |
| Giemsa-stained blood smear | Can show morulae inside white cells | Insensitive, and cannot tell the Ehrlichia species apart | Found the organism in 7 of 56 positive dogs in Bhubaneswar and in none of 525 dogs in the four-city survey |
| Buffy coat smear | Concentrates the white cells before looking | Still misses most positives | Found 18 of the same 56 positive dogs |
| Point-of-care antibody test, the SNAP 4Dx style | Shows that the dog has been exposed | Cannot prove active infection, and is not quantitative, so it cannot be used for paired titres | Dot-ELISA found antibodies in 48 of 60 suspect dogs in Ludhiana while microscopy found morulae in 2 |
| Paired IFA titres | A fourfold rise confirms a current infection | Needs a second sample 2 to 4 weeks later | Seroconversion can take up to 4 weeks, so an early test can be negative and the dog infected |
| PCR on whole blood | Detects the organism's own DNA | Can miss low numbers or a treated dog, and cannot rule out subclinical infection | Found 52 of 56 positives in Bhubaneswar and 27 of 82 suspect dogs in Ludhiana against 1 by microscopy |
What a SNAP 4Dx style antibody test proves
An antibody test proves exposure, not active infection, and the manufacturer says so. IDEXX's own page states that detection of antibodies to Ehrlichia canis, Ehrlichia ewingii or Ehrlichia chaffeensis indicates tick exposure and the transmission of infectious agents, and that additional testing is recommended to determine whether there is an active infection. Three limits follow. Seroconversion can take up to 4 weeks; point-of-care tests give a yes or no rather than a number, so they cannot supply paired titres; and cross-reactivity is high, so a positive does not name the species.
Ludhiana shows what that looks like in an Indian clinic. Dot-ELISA found antibodies in 48 of 60 privately owned suspect dogs, spread across three titre bands, 39.58 percent low, 31.25 percent medium and 29.16 percent high, while microscopy found morulae in two samples.
Why the platelet count matters
The platelet count is the cheapest test that points at this disease, and one Indian study has made it a threshold. Among 584 client-owned dogs screened in Salt Lake, Kolkata, between July 2024 and December 2025, E. canis was the only one of five pathogens driving acute multi-system illness, with median platelets of 105 against 186 x 10 to the 4 per cubic mm in PCR-negative dogs, and a count below 109 x 10 to the 4 per cubic mm predicted infection at 54.6 percent sensitivity and 80.0 percent specificity. A low count is the number that should stop a vet sending a febrile dog home untested.
Why a clear smear does not clear the dog
A negative blood smear means very little here. In the four-city survey, smears from all 525 samples were negative for Ehrlichia while PCR found it in 20.6 percent. Of the 56 positive Bhubaneswar dogs, 7 were found by blood smear, 18 by buffy coat smear and 52 by PCR. A 2026 Ludhiana series found 1 of 82 by microscopy against 27 by PCR, and a 719-dog Punjab screen found 1.4 percent against 2.6 percent by multiplex PCR.
A clear blood smear is not a clear dog. If your vet suspects tick fever and the smear is negative, ask what else is being run, because in the largest Indian survey the smear missed every single one of the 108 or so dogs that PCR found positive for Ehrlichia. The same applies in reverse to a positive antibody test in a well dog, which shows exposure and not disease.
Treatment in general terms, and what recovery looks like
Ehrlichiosis is treated with an antibiotic of the tetracycline class, doxycycline being the drug of choice because it penetrates cells well and works against rickettsial organisms, together with supportive care for the individual dog. This page names the drug class and stops there. The choice of drug, the amount and the length of the course are your veterinarian's decision for your dog, and no reference page should be the source of either.
Recovery in the acute phase is fast and visible. Fever is expected to settle within 24 to 48 hours of starting treatment, and a dog treated early has a good outlook when the whole course is finished. A response that does not come quickly makes the vet reconsider the diagnosis or look for the co-infection that is so common in India Abd Rani PAM, Irwin PJ, Coleman GT.
Blood values lag behind the dog, and in chronic cases the haematological abnormalities can persist for 3 to 6 months while the animal looks well. Severely affected dogs need more than antibiotics, including a transfusion when the packed cell volume is very low, fluids, and drugs for fever and pain Palerme JS. Ehrlichiosis in Dogs. MSD….
Follow-up is where Indian owners usually stop, and it is where this disease is decided. MSD advises repeating the E. canis antibody titre and a whole blood PCR after 6 months of illness to confirm treatment worked, and rechecking a still-positive titre 6 months later to be sure it is not climbing.
Does treatment clear the infection, or does the dog stay a carrier?
Most acutely ill dogs recover completely, and cure cannot be guaranteed for an individual dog. The European guideline says most acutely ill dogs heal after an effective treatment of appropriate length, then records that some experimentally infected dogs stayed infected even after acceptable treatment; MSD says most dogs clear the infection within 2 to 4 weeks and some go on to the chronic form.
Those two statements disagree about the normal outcome, both are current, and the practical consequence is the same Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena. A dog that looks better has not been shown to be clear. The marker of real elimination is that the dog stops producing specific antibodies, and a negative PCR does not settle it, because the organism circulates intermittently.
Dogs in the subclinical phase that test antibody-positive but are otherwise healthy may not need treatment, and treating them can contribute to antibiotic resistance, which is the position VCA takes on its owner-facing page. Not every such dog progresses to the chronic form. This is a judgement about your dog, made by the vet who examined it and saw its platelet count, and it is a good question to ask rather than a rule to apply at home.
What the tests cost in India, where a price is published
The test that matters first is the cheap one. A 13-parameter haematology panel, which carries the platelet count, is listed at Rs 600 per sample for private clinical samples at the Centralised Clinical Laboratory of Madras Veterinary College in Chennai, and a blood smear at Rs 200 per sample.
Those are a state veterinary university's published fees rather than a clinic's quote. The same laboratory prints a second block for samples from its own hospital, where the 13-parameter haematology is Rs 150 per sample, and the two blocks are not consistent on serum biochemistry, so read each row as printed. Every rupee figure was divided by 84.38 and by 74, and none is a converted dollar price.
Confirmation costs more and is not published anywhere we could open. Vetic, a clinic chain in several Indian cities, lists tick fever testing by blood smear and PCR, and tick fever rtPCR, among its dog diagnostics, with no price for either. No Indian rate card or pharmacy page opened on 23 September 2026 printed the cost of a treatment course for a dog, so this page publishes none.
One retail Indian price exists and needs a caveat larger than itself. A getTested Ehrlichia antibody kit for dogs, sold as a rapid at-home blood test, was listed at Rs 1,489, shown on the listing as ₹1,489.00, on Amazon.in on 23 September 2026. It costs more than twice a full haematology panel at a government laboratory, it returns an exposure result that the professional equivalent's maker says needs further testing, and it cannot count platelets.
The order that gets the most information per rupee is set out below.
- Ask for the platelet count first, because it is the cheapest number that points at Ehrlichia and it is part of a standard haematology panel.
- Ask what confirmatory test is being run, since a smear alone found 7 of 56 positive dogs in one Indian series and none of 525 in another Abd Rani PAM, Irwin PJ, Coleman GT.
- Ask whether the panel covers the co-infections, because 72.9 percent of 584 Kolkata dogs carried two or more pathogens.
- Ask when to come back, because the recheck at 6 months is what shows whether treatment worked.
- Ask what tick product suits your dog, and treat that as part of the treatment cost rather than an extra.
Prevention: keep the tick off, because there is no vaccine
To prevent ehrlichiosis, keep ticks off the dog every month of the year, because no commercial vaccine exists against Ehrlichia canis and the tick is the route into the dog Palerme JS. Ehrlichiosis in Dogs. MSD….
Tick control has been measured on Indian dogs. In 442 clinically suspected dogs in Andhra Pradesh, 45 of 356 dogs whose owners did not follow tick control were positive (12.64 percent) against 6 of 86 whose owners did (6.98 percent), an odds ratio of 0.281 with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.153 to 0.514, and the authors name visible ticks, kennel housing and absent tick control as the practical targets.
The tropical guideline asks for the same thing with no season attached. TroCCAP states that dogs and cats in the tropics should be protected from ectoparasites throughout the year, that regular inspection and prompt removal of ticks is highly recommended, and that products with repellent and fast killing effects should be applied as per label recommendations; even mostly indoor dogs are exposed at parks and at grooming.
The evening check is worth doing and it is not a substitute for a product, because transmission can begin within 3 hours of the tick attaching, well inside the window in which an owner would find it.
This page does not repeat the routine. Our guide to dog ticks in India: prevention, removal and products carries the year-round schedule, the product classes sold in India with prices and the removal method, and the monsoon care guide for dogs in India covers the wet-season parasite load. Two points belong here rather than there.
- Screen a new dog before it joins the others, because a subclinical carrier looks exactly like a healthy dog and 24 of 46 positive working dogs in India had no signs.
- Ask about the blood donor, since transmission through transfusion is documented, screening canine blood products by PCR is recommended in endemic areas, and a new donor that screens seronegative cannot be assumed free of infection for several weeks.
There is no vaccine to fall back on. No commercial vaccine protects against E. canis, Anaplasma phagocytophilum or Anaplasma platys, although an attenuated E. canis strain has been evaluated as a candidate. The dog vaccination schedule for India does nothing against this disease.
What is different in India: nine series, and why the numbers disagree
India has more published Ehrlichia canis prevalence data than almost any tropical country, and the figures range from 2.6 percent to 32.9 percent because the populations and the methods differ, not because the studies contradict each other.
| Where | Dogs | Population tested | Ehrlichia canis found | Method | Sampling period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi, Mumbai, Sikkim, Ladakh | 525 | Strays (77 percent) and shelter dogs | 20.6 percent overall; 39.5 percent Delhi, 27.2 percent Mumbai, 0 percent Sikkim, 0 percent Ladakh | PCR | June to September 2008 |
| Chennai, Tamil Nadu | 230 | Stray dogs | 16.1 percent | PCR | Published 2020 |
| Bhubaneswar, Odisha | 178 | Pet dogs at a teaching hospital | 56 dogs, 31.46 percent | Smear, buffy coat and PCR | March 2019 to December 2022 |
| Punjab | 719 | Dogs screened for haemoparasites | 2.6 percent by PCR, 1.4 percent by microscopy | Multiplex PCR | Published 2024 |
| Ludhiana, Punjab | 82 | Clinically suspect dogs at a teaching hospital | 27 dogs, 32.9 percent | PCR | Published 2026 |
| Ludhiana, Punjab | 60 | Privately owned suspect dogs | 48 dogs antibody-positive | Dot-ELISA | Published 2011 |
| Wayanad, Kerala | 120 | Clinically affected dogs | 6 dogs, 5.0 percent | PCR | November 2023 to September 2024 |
| Kolkata, West Bengal | 584 | Client-owned dogs at a state centre | 97 dogs, 16.61 percent | Real-time PCR | July 2024 to December 2025 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 442 | Clinically suspected dogs at 90 dispensaries | 51 dogs, 11.54 percent by PCR, 37 by microscopy | PCR | Published 2026 |
| Organised kennels, several zones | 225 | Working dogs suspected of ehrlichiosis | 19.1 percent by dot-ELISA, 5.8 percent by nested PCR | Serology and nested PCR | Two-year study, published 2017 |
Those rows come from ten separate publications, each opened for this page Manoj RRS, Iatta R, Latrofa MS, Capozzi L Chakraborty A, Rath PK, Panda SK Singh H, Padmaja M, Thomas AM, Panwar H Kumar A, Bal MS, Verma A, Mahajan V Singla LD, Singh H, Kaur P, Singh ND Venugopal V, Deepa PM, Muhasin Asaf VN Shil S, Chini DS, Mukherjee Kopparthi J, Chennuru S, Vukka CR Mittal M, Kundu K, Chakravarti S. Three rules explain the spread.
- The population decides the number. A screen of 719 unselected Punjab dogs returned 2.6 percent; a hospital series of 82 dogs picked for signs of ehrlichiosis returned 32.9 percent Kumar A, Bal MS, Verma A, Mahajan V.
- The method decides the number. Microscopy found 37 of 442 Andhra dogs where PCR found 51, and found none of 525 dogs in the four-city survey where PCR found 20.6 percent Abd Rani PAM, Irwin PJ, Coleman GT.
- The climate decides the number. Delhi and Mumbai returned 39.5 and 27.2 percent; Sikkim and Ladakh, at altitude and dry, returned zero out of 201 dogs between them.
Does season matter in India? The two studies disagree
The two Indian series that tested season disagree, and both are published here. In Andhra Pradesh, 31 of 188 dogs sampled in summer were positive (16.49 percent) against 13 of 168 in the rainy season (7.73 percent) and 7 of 86 in winter (8.13 percent). In Bhubaneswar the same comparison was flat, at 31.63, 31.48 and 30.76 percent, with no significant seasonal association. What both rule out is a season in which an Indian dog is safe, which is what the tropical guideline assumes.
Does breed matter? Three sources, three answers
Breed changes how badly this goes rather than whether a dog gets it, and three sources pull in three directions. Bhubaneswar found no significant difference by breed, at 30 to 32.14 percent across all seven breed groups. Andhra Pradesh found mongrels at 2.587 times the odds of purebreds, 95 percent confidence interval 1.391 to 4.810, which its authors read as exposure and patchy parasite control. The European guideline says all breeds are prone, and that German Shepherd Dogs and Siberian Huskies develop more severe signs and carry a worse prognosis; MSD agrees the chronic form is commoner in German Shepherd Dogs.
One detail in the Bhubaneswar breed table matters before anyone quotes it. It lists German Shepherd (44 dogs) and Alsatian (25 dogs) as separate rows, which are two names for one breed, so those rows describe 69 dogs of the same breed.
Street-origin dogs deserve a line, because so many Indian homes have one. In Chennai, 229 of 230 stray dogs carried ticks, 16.1 percent of the dogs carried E. canis and 16.9 percent of the Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks tested carried it. A newly rescued Indian Pariah Dog comes from that population, which is an argument for testing before it meets the other animals in the house.
Living with a dog that has had ehrlichiosis
A dog that has had ehrlichiosis needs three things afterwards: the recheck its vet sets, unbroken tick control, and a note in its file before any course of steroids or any blood donation Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena.
The recheck is the part most owners skip. A titre and a whole blood PCR repeated after 6 months of illness confirms that treatment worked, and a titre still positive at a lower level is rechecked 6 months later. Antibodies falling away to nothing is the marker that the organism has been eliminated.
Steroids are the most avoidable trigger. Immunosuppressive doses given to a dog carrying a subclinical infection can bring the bacteraemia back in an animal that looks well, so any vet treating a skin allergy or a joint problem should be told this dog has had tick fever.
Other dogs in the house are not at risk from the patient directly, because the organism needs the tick or a transfusion to reach them Sainz A, Roura X, Miro G, Estrada-Pena. What the household shares is the tick, which completes its life cycle indoors in Indian homes, so every animal goes on a suitable product the same day.
The six months after a diagnosis have a short list of their own.
- Finish the whole course, because the outlook is good in dogs treated in the acute phase when the full course is given.
- Keep the tick product on schedule, since past infection leaves no lasting immunity and re-infection is possible.
- Watch for the acute signs returning, especially fever, dullness and bleeding, which is what a relapse looks like.
- Take the recheck appointment, at the interval the vet sets, and repeat the titre and PCR as advised.
- Mention the history before any steroid course, any surgery and any blood donation.
Prognosis is honest rather than comforting. A dog treated early in the acute phase generally does well, and a dog in the chronic severe form, with bone marrow hypoplasia and pancytopenia, has a grave outlook. The Indian figure to hold on to is Bhubaneswar's, where 3 of 56 positive dogs died despite treatment, a case fatality of 5.35 percent in a hospital caseload.
Questions people ask Google India about ehrlichiosis in dogs
Can a dog recover fully from Ehrlichia?
Yes, most dogs treated in the acute phase recover fully, and complete recovery cannot be guaranteed for an individual dog. The European guideline records that most acutely ill dogs heal after an effective course, and that some experimentally infected dogs stayed infected even after acceptable treatment.
What is the survival rate for dogs with ehrlichiosis?
No Indian study publishes a survival rate for all infected dogs. In the Bhubaneswar series of 178 pet dogs, 3 of the 56 positive dogs died despite treatment, a case fatality of 5.35 percent. Dogs treated early in the acute phase generally do well, and dogs in the chronic severe form do not.
How to cure ehrlichiosis in dogs?
To treat ehrlichiosis in dogs, a veterinarian prescribes an antibiotic of the tetracycline class, doxycycline being the drug of choice, with supportive care where the dog needs it. Fever is expected to settle within 24 to 48 hours. No home remedy cures it, and the course is the vet's decision.
What are the long-term effects of ehrlichiosis in dogs?
The long-term effects belong to the chronic phase, in which bone marrow hypoplasia and pancytopenia develop and immune complexes settle in organs, producing anterior uveitis, polymyositis, vasculitis and glomerulonephritis. Blood abnormalities can persist 3 to 6 months after treatment, and a dog can stay a subclinical carrier for years.
Can Ehrlichia be passed from dog to dog?
Not directly. Ehrlichia canis reaches another dog only through the brown dog tick or a blood transfusion, so an infected dog is not contagious by contact or by sharing a bowl. Screening canine blood donors by PCR is recommended in endemic areas, and a seronegative new donor may still be incubating.
How long after a tick bite does ehrlichiosis show up in a dog?
Signs usually appear 1 to 3 weeks after infection, and the acute phase then lasts 2 to 4 weeks. Transmission begins much faster, because Rhipicephalus sanguineus can start passing Ehrlichia canis within 3 hours of attaching, so removing a tick the same evening reduces risk without removing it.
Is a tick fever test worth doing if my dog seems perfectly fine?
It can be, because healthy-looking Indian dogs carry this infection. In a two-year study of working dogs in organised Indian kennels, 24 of the 46 dogs that tested positive were apparently healthy, and the authors recommended screening healthy animals too. Your nearby vet decides whether a well dog needs testing.
Can people catch ehrlichiosis from their dog?
Not from the dog itself. Ehrlichia chaffeensis and Ehrlichia ewingii are considered zoonotic, and because every one of these organisms needs a tick as an intermediate vector, infected dogs pose no direct transmission risk to people in normal circumstances. An infected dog is a sentinel for infected ticks nearby.