Here in the Northeast, Lymes disease appears to be on the upswing, in dogs, horses and people. My sister is struggling with the disease, her dog was diagnosed too late and died from complications. My mare(20 years young this spring!) has had vague lameness at the trot since last summer. I put her on a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement starting last fall in hopes of a positive outcome this spring, to no avail. When the vet came for the first round of spring shots, he did an evaluation, with no conclusive results. On his second visit, he asked to do the "snap" test (quick results) on the horses for lymes disease, suspecting that as the cause of her lameness.  Out of the 4 horses, hers was the only one to come back positive. She is now on doxycaline (sp?), 45 pills twice/day for 8 weeks. Her lameness seems to be improving. The vet said he has had more horses this spring with a positive diagnosis than ever before. He wants the other horses on a tick preventative, such as "Spot On," which I have done. Hopefully a vaccine will be developed to add to the arsenal the horses already get!

I am doubtful of a vaccine, because it's not a virus.  Lyme's comes from bacteria, thus the antibiotics.

I believe they are more correctly called immunizations.  To each his own...

Ticks are really bad out here in Cali. too. Josie got bit in the chest back in Feb. and it left a huge bald spot, plus swelled up really, really bad. Then she got bit in March and left a spot on her inside rear leg and did the same thing.

Asked one of the vets that works up at ours, and he said sounded like a bad reaction to a tick bite. She's fine, nothing different acting about her, but next time I take her in (wed. for a float) I'm gonna question about the Lymes test....