Border Collies and other dogs -MDR1 mutation and associated drug dangers-please read if you have dogs & who doesn't

Our Dogs are Border Collies. I gave our dogs Salemectin (Revolution) as treatment for heartworm, ticks etc . I always buy the big size and dose for the exact weight of the dog..way cheaper that way and way more accurate dosing. The dogs had one prevous treatment the year before. This time i treated late afternoon, and kenneled at night. In the morning My one dog could barely stand. She was having tremors, high fever, wouldn't eat or drink and she was down! After many tests, antibiotics, it was just supportive care that saved her life. She had to be on IV fluids and was under vet care for over two weeks...then home and home care with Sub-Q fluid therapy for another couple of weeks. Pfizer picked up the diagnostics tab ~1500.00 and left us with the remainder. They then changed the warnings on their label to include the symptoms my dog had. It is fairly common in Border collies; MDR1 mutation that allows the medication to cross the blood brain barrier and have neurological effects. There is a vet at Western Washington University (Dr. K Mealey) that has done extensive research about this, and you can get a blood test to determine exactly what MDR1 mutation your dog has as there are many different mutations.

Salemectin is an Ivermectin derivative.
There is a whole list of drugs that may cause the same effects-link below

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There is also a list of dogs breeds that may be more susceptible to this mutation

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hopefully this helps

Thanks for sharing this valuable info! I was aware of the mutation and ivermectin but didn't know of the other similar meds. I don't have a dog myself but will pass along this info to all my friends that do.

I believe it's the entire class of avermectin drugs - which may not show up in the brand name, but if you look for the active ingredient, and it ends in "mectin", be careful. As already stated, it's only a finite number of breeds that react badly to these drugs.

When we were at the vet last, they were prescribing it to a couple dog owners and told them that their dogs needed to be under constant watch for 48 hours after being dosed and if they showed ANY signs of lethargy, itching, drooling, trouble breathing that they needed to be bathed IMMEDIATELY using dawn dish soap and brought in without delay. When I asked why, she told me a "large percentage" of dogs (and cats) have negative reactions leading to major complications with any tick drop medication, properly prescribed or pre-dosed you can buy in big box stores.

My question then is: are the risks greater than the benefits?

My Mom and I lost a cat to this stuff and I have a hard time rationalizing using it, I'd rather just pick over them with the accepted risks. We dosed the cat in the morning as we had done many times before, every 3 months as per the prescription. Boo (the cat's name) was dragged up the stairs by a stray dog we'd been caring for for months and she barked incessantly to get us to come to the door, nosing him and carrying him by the scruff to try and get our help. We brought Boo in the house and he was twitching and gasping and deathly pale. I thought he was choking on something so I pulled open his mouth and stuck my finger down there to find nothing and was subsequently bitten when he went into convulsions. In the 20 minutes it took us to drive him to town, it looked like the colour had come out of his fur. Once a vibrant orange, he was a very pale gold. They asked us a series of questions that included asking about flea and tick medication. We told them we had just done it in the morning. 3 hours later we went in and said our goodbyes to put him down. His eyes were wide and gaping and they were clouded over as though he was blind. He was convulsing and twitching and spitting and biting his tongue and it was one of the most terrible things I have had to witness a pet go through. The vet said he didn't think he was feeling anything due to brain damage, but couldn't be sure.

I called the company (I can't recall who it was, maybe frontline, we lived in the US at the time) and told them what happened and that, in addition to the $750 vet bill, we had lost a beloved family member to what the vet diagnosed as an allergic reaction to the flea and tick preventative drops placed on the back of the neck as directed. The woman on the phone replied that they had been receiving a lot of calls on the matter recently and to submit my vet bills with a reference number and they would be "happy to compensate us for the vet bills" and add an additional $20 for the value of the pet. Eff you, how THOUGHTFUL indeed. We submitted our vet bills via fax with applicable reference number. They requested the originals, which we had photocopied for us so we could send the originals and we sent them up. I called them again when we heard nothing and they said they had not received it,. I told them I would have the vet mail it directly to which the argued: "Those won't apply as the originals." After several months of fighting and being hung up on and drudging up the images of our cat writhing on a table, literally a shell of his former self, we gave up.

Thanks for the links. We were aware of this and even though the Kelpie is not on the list, we don't use mectins with them just in case.
Now that I have seen the list, I want a Silken Windhound........sigh........