In our experience so far, parasites and pests absolutely love life in the tropics. There’s no winter to kill them off, so they use the time to get bigger, faster and smarter. Working at a veterinary clinic in St. Thomas, Alicia dealt over and over again with animals made gravely ill due to parasite infestations and the diseases caused by these. If you’re going to take a pet off sailing with you to places far and warm, a laissez-faire attitude about what he or she can be exposed to could have serious, even deadly, consequences.
Heartworm
Please, if you do nothing else for your dog, bring lots of heartworm prevention along on your trip, and be absolutely religious about giving it on time, year-round. This is a big deal! Heartworms get into your dog through the bite of a carrier mosquito, and heartworm disease is running rampant around here. If your dog is not on prevention, it’s not a question of "if," it’s a question of "when"! Treatment for a heartworm infection (several injections of a nasty poison) is very hard on a dog and not all dogs can survive it. Not to mention that to find a clinic capable of treating your animal, you’d probably have to quickly sail to one of the bigger, wealthier islands.
If left untreated, the death that eventually comes from heartworm disease is a horrible end. The symptoms most owners seem to notice first is a persistent cough and a waning appetite. In time, the poor dog wastes away, coughs up blood, seizures and eventually dies of congestive heart failure. Don't do this to your dog! Preventing heartworm is so easy and inexpensive. There are several drugs on the market, usually a pill or a treat given once a month, and they all work. As an added bonus, they also claim to wipe out hookworms too, although the brand Interceptor is the most effective for this. There’s really no excuse for you to let heartworm happen to your best friend.
Fleas and Ticks
These guys are in it to win it around here! Especially ticks. We on SARABANDE have dealt with not one, but TWO horrific tick infestations onboard, each from brief, innocent forays ashore with Louie. Ticks were everywhere - crawling in our bed, climbing the walls, falling out of books when you opened them. As a result, we’ve learned a lot more about these gross creatures than we ever wanted to know, and what doesn’t work when it comes to getting rid of them. It’s really important to be vigilant in preventing them from setting up shop in your boat, or you’ll have a major headache on your hands!
If you’re going to take your dog to wooded areas ashore or let your cat roam off the boat, he needs to be dosed regularly with some sort of flea and tick preventive. Get the type you apply between the shoulder blades once a month from a vet’s office. No K-mart specials here - they don’t work at all! Sadly, we've found safer herbal sprays equally ineffective. This is a sad and true fact.
If one pet goes ashore and you have others that don’t, you still need to dose all your animals. A boat-only cat can still end up covered in fleas that your dog brings home. We hate to use harsh chemicals like this, but experience has taught us to never again let Louie roll up on shore “naked”. It’s not worth the months of work to rid the boat of an infestation, and besides, you’ll have to treat the parasites and diseases that fleas and ticks carry with a chemical anyway, so it’s a case of either/or.
We know, we know. But around here, you've got to use it.
Really, really wants to come live with you.
If all your efforts fail, and you find your boat suddenly overrun, in the end the only thing that really works is taking every moveable thing off the boat, opening all the lockers, removing all the living things that you don't want to die from the boat, and setting off a powerful bug fogger or two. Don't come back to the boat for several hours. Launder everything washable in hot water before you put it back aboard (including your pets, using a good pyrethrin shampoo), and vacuum or wipe down everything else thoroughly. If you use a vacuum cleaner in your efforts, make sure when you're done that you dispose of the bag ashore. Take our (exhausted) word for it - don't do this halfway or you'll just have to start all over in a few weeks.
If your boat gets infested, it may feel like this is the only way to put an end to the madness.
"OK," you might say, "what's the big deal with a few fleas and ticks? So my dog's a little itchy. So what?"
Well, there are other complications brought on by these nasties, my careless, unempathetic friend. Such as....
Tick Fever
Ticks, of whom there must be billions upon billions roaming around in the Virgin Islands alone, can be carriers of a serious bacterial disease called erlichiosis, commonly known in the islands as tick fever. Your dog doesn’t have to be infested with ticks to contract the disease; it’s only a question of getting bitten by the wrong single tick at the wrong time. Tick fever is definitely out there, and without help from you, your dog stands a very real chance of catching it.
An engorged female tick. There's no way to tell whether she's a carrier of tick fever or not.
Signs of the sickness include a loss of appetite, fever, low energy, swollen lymph glands and sometimes loose, bloody stools. These symptoms get more pronounced as the disease progresses. A reasonably well-equipped veterinarian can make a definitive diagnosis with a simple in-house blood test. Treatment usually involves large doses of doxycycline, and severe cases sometimes require a blood transfusion. If left untreated, the dog can eventually die, although whether it takes weeks or months depends on the dog. Either way, it's not pretty, so take the five minutes and pick those ticks off your dog when you're done with your stroll!
Tapeworms
Fleas and tapeworms can go hand in hand, happily making a living off your pet. Although not nearly as harmful as the other parasites mentioned here, tapeworms are still unbearably icky to think about. They get into your animal by piggybacking their way in on fleas, who as babies ingest tapeworm eggs. As the fleas mature and start biting your pet, the tapeworm eggs hatch in the fleas and wait for their big moment. When your pet chews himself in response to the biting, he inevitably ingests a flea or two, and once inside, the tapeworms find a nice place to latch onto in your pet's intestines and grow up.
Tapeworm segment.
Note: this is not Alicia's finger, nor Brian's.
There are many other nasty parasites out there, but these are the big ones we've seen so far. All are preventable with a little money and time. If you choose to bring a pet onboard to sail with you, keeping him from getting sick is your job, your duty, to this dependent living creature. If the paragraphs above sound like doing so is too much work, don't bring animals aboard! Maybe a pet rock would be a better choice?
