Sarah M., 38, never imagined a Sunday hike in the woods would turn into her worst nightmare.
As an avid outdoor enthusiast, her new passion was exploring Australia's trails with her adventure buddy, Max—a 4-year-old Golden Retriever. They'd conquered dozens of trails together... until something terrible happened.
One crisp autumn morning, while finishing their favorite coastal trail near Newcastle, Sarah noticed Max was scratching behind his ear more than usual. She brushed it off as nothing, but after their hike, she felt something moving through his thick fur. She parted the hair and her heart dropped. A massive, engorged paralysis tick was buried deep near his collar. PANIC!
She quickly grabbed her tick removal tool from the car (she always kept one handy), but little did she know the damage was already done...
As she desperately tried to remove the tick properly, a wave of dread washed over her. Max had been her hiking partner for three years. How could she have missed this?
She drove straight to the emergency vet, her hands shaking on the wheel. Max seemed fine now, but paralysis ticks are silent killers, and symptoms can appear days later.
"The fear was suffocating," Sarah recalls. "But the guilt of putting my dog at risk just by living our normal active lifestyle was worse."
I couldn't stop blaming myself. What if I'd missed it? What if there were more? What if next time we weren't so lucky?
Over the next 48 hours, Sarah barely slept. She watched Max obsessively for any signs of weakness, stumbling, or breathing problems, all symptoms of tick paralysis that can kill a dog within days.
Thankfully, Max recovered. But the vet's words haunted her: "You got lucky this time. But in your area, with how often you hike, it's not a matter of if another tick will bite, it's when."
With so many health risks associated with paralysis ticks (including death), Sarah knew she had to find a better solution.
The vet asked if she was using prevention. She said yes, monthly treatments. But here's the problem: those treatments don't prevent ticks from attaching. They only kill them after they've already bitten your dog.
"But what if next time the tick attached overnight and I didn't find it for 24 hours?" she said. "All because I wanted to enjoy the trails with my best friend."
Little do outdoor dog owners know that paralysis ticks can inject their toxin within just 1-2 days of attachment¹, and once symptoms start, many dogs don't survive even with treatment.²
These pesky pests are virtually impossible to spot until they're engorged³, so after your dog runs through long grass or bushland, paralysis ticks can be crawling on them for hours—or already attached—before you even start your tick check.⁴
And that's not the worst part: in tick-heavy regions like coastal Australia, dogs are exposed to multiple ticks on every outdoor adventure, meaning constant exposure increases the risk of a deadly encounter.
Her vet explained that active outdoor dog owners are most at risk because even with monthly treatments, the chemicals only work after the tick bites, meaning your dog must be bitten first for the treatment to kill the tick.⁵ By then, disease transmission may have already begun.
Sarah is not alone: Over 10,000 dogs are treated for tick paralysis in Australia every year (and that number keeps growing).
Her vet suggested avoiding tick-heavy areas during peak season, but Sarah said she could never.
In fact, 78% of outdoor dog owners said they would rather find a better solution than limit their dog's outdoor activities⁷... and 45% went so far as to say they'd rather take their chances than give up their active lifestyle.⁸
"Unfortunately for me, it took one terrifying close call to finally make me realize how dangerous my situation was. It wasn't just the fear of losing Max, it was the thought of losing my freedom to explore nature with my adventure buddy. The trails, the camping trips, the beach runs... all of it suddenly felt like a minefield."
"I wish I had known there was a better way to protect him sooner…"
Sarah knew she had to do something to actually prevent ticks from latching onto Max, not just kill them after they'd already bitten. Immediately she started researching tick-repelling collars, natural sprays, and even considered limiting their adventures to paved trails only.
"That's when the real nightmare began," Sarah said. "I tried a Seresto collar first, everyone said it worked. But then I read the horror stories online. Dogs having seizures. Some even died. I was too scared to put it on Max.
"So I bought some 'natural' tick sprays from a pet store. What a waste of money. Sure, it helped a little, but I had to reapply it every 2-3 hours on long hikes, and after finding three more ticks on Max during a camping trip just weeks later, I realized it didn't work well enough for serious tick pressure... It only gave me false confidence. The ticks still got through, and I was right back where I started, terrified every time we hit the trails."
Running out of options, Sarah had a tough choice to make: keep using harsh chemical treatments that don't prevent bites, or give up the outdoor lifestyle she and Max both loved.
But this outdoor-loving dog mom was about to get her answer from a friend… literally.
