Dog Tick Borne Paralysis

This ugly looking tick almost caused our dog his life!

This past Monday Toby started with wobbly back legs & not moving very much, by Tues. he could not use his front or back legs at all! He was paralized but the guy was still wagging his tail a mile a minute & was very alert. At first I thought he had blown a disk in his back but the tail thing had me not beliving that. Wed. he was not better so we were trying to make plans to take him to the vet (we were really thinking he would have to be put down). I felt so bad for him because he kept looking at me pleading with me on why his legs weren't moving (he in normally a very active dog). While I was petting him I saw a tiny black tick on his ear, picked it off and told Kelly about it. She said "Mom you better check his other ear", which I did and lo and behold there was the biggest tick I had ever seen stuck down in his ear canal area! It was the same color as his ear canal so it was easily missed. I got that sucker out of there with Kelly holding Toby down, I wanted to make sure I got it all. I quickly did a search on the computer and found out about "Dog Tick Borne Paralysis"! By the next day he was wobbly again but starting to move, by Friday he was back to his old self : ) It was amazing how quickly this could have killed him if we didn't get that tick out.