Tick-borne diseases including Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and babesiosis cause significant welfare harms in dogs and are largely preventable through consistent tick prevention.
Tick-borne diseases cause significant welfare harms through fever, joint pain, lethargy, anemia, and in severe cases organ failure. Ehrlichiosis in particular can progress to a chronic phase where the dog experiences immune-mediated blood cell destruction for months or years after the initial infection. Lyme arthritis causes recurrent painful joint swelling. The welfare cost of these diseases is entirely preventable through appropriate parasite control. Dogs in high-risk areas that are not receiving effective tick prevention are exposed to entirely avoidable disease risk.