The St. Claude Vet Clinic wants pet owners to be mindful of ticks and Lyme disease this summer.

Dr. Marc Philippot says there's been an increase in the disease over the past couple of years, and they're already taking precautions.

Marc Phillipot

"We're screening dogs right now, that's the one species that typically gets it first. So we're doing blood tests to see, and if we find positive cases we treat them with an antibiotic that's known to fight off the infection. Then from there we decide on future tests, or setting them up with prevention programs, vaccine programs for that dog or any other housemates."

Philippot offers up a couple of pointers for keeping your pet healthy, starting with checking for ticks every day.

"We want you to remove those as quickly as you can. But you do have other options of prevention such as oral medication, a pill you can give to them to help fight off the tick. Also a repellent we use, a pour on liquid you can apply to their skin to help repel the ticks off. Then of course if we're worried about Lyme Disease further than that, we can certainly vaccinate dogs."

He lists a few of the symptoms to look for.

"Just an unusual lameness issue, where the dog just suddenly becomes lame. It can also be the dog is a little bit sick for a day or two, off food, off water and then they seem to get better again. That can be a sign of Lyme Disease, so it's not very hard to test for it. Most clinics will do it in-house and we can pull a blood sample and do that right away."

He adds the best prevention is checking your pet for ticks daily, and removing them quickly.