WHAT IS LEISHMANIASIS? 

Leishmaniasis (from the Mediterranean) is a disease that is transmitted by a small, silent, nocturnal, blood-sucking sandfly. WITHOUT THIS SANDFLY, THE LEISHMANIA CAN’T BE TRANSMITTED TO OTHER DOGS.  SO NO SANDFLY, NO LEISHMANIA.  It is passed in the sandfly’s saliva, the parasites having developed in the sandflies gut for 7-11 days.  The sandflies have digested and passed the bloods day before they pass the parasites.

The incubation period is very long – it can be many years. In this period the microorganisms disseminate widely, with a predilection for the bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, and liver.

Most of the positive dogs treated for leish will go on to live happy and healthy lives, the disease is NOT life shortening.  But they need yearly blood tests to check if the Leishmania is active or inactive (if it’s active, they need to be treated) and they also need to avoid stress, steroids, and unnecessary vaccines that can flare up the dormant disease.

Common clinical signs are skin lesions, weight loss, anorexia, long nails, ocular lesions, nasal bleeding and muscle atrophy. Visceral leish may manifest itself in the kidneys or liver, so keep an eye on excessive thirst or urination.

Save Our Spaniels test all our rescues in the initial stages of rescue for the most common Mediterranean diseases including leishmania, so we are able to establish if the parasite is “active”.  It is the activity of the parasite that causes symptoms and damage to the dog.  Testing positive for leishmania does not necessarily mean that the rescue needs treatment in the absence of symptoms, it may purely indicate that the dog carries the leish antibodies and will not affect their health.  Dogs with high antibodies can be perfectly healthy with dormant leish, whilst others with low antibodies can be ill.  Hence a full set of bloods (listed below) is always necessary.

Annual bloods are advisable for leish dogs (whether active or not).  Non-active dogs may well be treated with a maintenance drug; allopurinal (a human gout drug easily accessible on prescription from your vet and obtained from your local chemist for around £15-20/month).  Two schools of veterinary thought are a) that 2 non-active blood tests taken annually you can stop giving the allopurinal b) the leish is present throughout their life and allopurinal is administered throughout their life.    The allopurinal prevents reproduction of the parasite.

Allopurinal, as with all drugs, may have side effects.  When used for the long-term a low-purine diet should be fed to prevent certain types of bladder stones (xanthine stones) developing in the dog.

It is necessary to carry out a variety of blood tests to establish whether the leish is active; haematology and biochemistry (that can be carried out in house with your vet), serum protein electrophoresis and leish serology (carried out at an external laboratory; IDEXX, FINN Laboratories).  ALL THESE TESTS ARE REQUIRED. 

Despite your vet potentially not being fully conversant with this medical condition, there is a wealth of information and informed veterinary experience in the rescue community, most especially from the Facebook page of “Living with Leish”.  Save Our Spaniels will be on hand throughout the process of applications and adoptions for both adopters and their vets.  The rescue will pay for the first set of monitoring bloods and liaise with your veterinary practice and all our dogs will leave their foster homes with a 3 month supply of allopurinol.

Save Our Spaniels offers lifetime rescue back up for all our dogs.