Back home you’ll most likely take good care of your friend, by providing healthy food and preventing fleas and ticks by using the correct treatments. Everything is going well and you don’t worry at all. Now that you want to bring your friend along on a future expedition, it is important to know that you might need to take extra precautions to keep him or her safe. We will focus on Africa here, as it turns out, it is super rewarding to bring your buddy along on your trip to Africa, but might require some more precautions than you’re used to. Below we will share knowledge that can prove to be of vital importance.

Adopting Nimba and losing a friend

In the spring of 2023, we adopted Nimba, our rescue puppy, in Nigeria. We did so at a time when we were stranded in a compound together with fellow overlanders James, Amy, Luna, and Arrow (@lazutheblue). Being dog lovers at heart, they guided us in the process of adopting Nimba, and bringing her back to good health.

We couldn’t be more grateful for their support and knowledge, and can’t thank them enough. Over the past months we as persons, but also the dogs, have grown to be great friends to each other. Whilst the four of us liked to cook together, the three dogs did their thing. But this unfortunately is a thing of the past, as this post is written with great sadness, as we share the loss of Luna Peaches Dartnall who passed away due to a cruel disease that she caught somewhere between home and Namibia. Luna was a friend to all. A wonderful soul we will never forget.

Her passing is the reason we would like to elaborate on the importance of sharing knowledge and listening to local advice. Because as it turns out, the basic but elaborate dog health advice that you get in Europe, isn’t covering the risks here in Africa. Different risks are involved, which require extra attention and care.

We thank Amy and James, parents of Luna, for sharing the information in this blog with us so that you can travel to Africa with more knowledge about dog diseases found around this continent. We hope that this extra bit of information provides you with a foundation on which you can do further research, so you can travel with more peace of mind.

We do state, however, that this information is based on their own knowledge and experience. We advise you to use this blog as one of many resources and to take the time to research so you can travel safely. Keep in mind that this blog mostly refers to disease prevention, and doesn’t cover other basics like providing your furry friend with cooling mats to decrease heat stress and more.

Please read the info from James and Amy below, to start your overlanding journey better prepared.

The loss of Luna

In October 2023 we lost our darling Luna dog to a nasty parasite transmitted by a Tsetse fly, which she contracted somewhere on our journey from the UK to Cape Town.

After being under the weather for a few weeks and battling it hard for a few days, we did everything we could think of to try to save her but finally had to say goodbye to her in Windhoek, Namibia. She was only 5 and a half and we are heartbroken to lose our baby in such a shocking way.

We want to share our learnings, in the hope that they can help keep other dogs safe, and inspire people to have well-informed adventures with their furry families.

We are not vets, so please inform yourself at a vet, but we recommend checking in with local vets (in Africa) as well as European ones. Knowledge gained through experience on the continent, or in the region, itself can be lifesaving.

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Dog health advice from James and Amy

Prevention

• It’s not just ticks and fleas that transmit diseases harmful to dogs. Mosquitos and biting flies transmit some nasty parasites (usually from livestock carriers) and it’s hard to protect against these.
• African ticks and insects are strong and resistant. European tick treatment brands like Frontline and Advantix do not protect against all biting insects. We are aware of three brands in Africa (NexGard, Simparica and Bravecto) that protect against a broader range of insects, but still not all.
• African vets told us to apply the treatment more frequently than the packaging advises (every 2-3 weeks instead of 4). There is some advice that this can be harmful to the dog (especially if they are young), but on balance and knowing what we know, we would have done it every 2 weeks. It is important that you do your own research and decide what is right for your dog.
• To prevent bites from things like the Tsetse fly, you can use a child-safe deet spray once a day (again, some advice says this is not safe for dogs but we would have used it). You can also research other solutions (such as a spray of boiled lemon rinds).
• Using citronella apparently helps as well. Again, some advice says this is not safe for dogs, so it might be wise to apply it to their harness instead of their fur. 
• We strongly advise visiting a good local vet in the countries you’re going to as soon as you arrive and asking about local risks and treatments. It’s 10 minutes that could save your dog or another dog’s life. We left Europe with a huge box of dog first aid – from a saline drip to equipment to do minor surgery and over a year’s worth of flea, tick, and worm treatment. We thought we were fully prepared.

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Routine monitoring you can do while traveling (not exhaustive)

• Regular temperature checks of your dog (thermometer in the bum). 37°C to 39°C is normal.
• General observation: Check the color of their gums and eyes (white gums can be a sign of a fever or anemia, the first signs of a tick fever).  Yellow eyes can be a sign of liver malfunction. Pinch fur between shoulder blades to check for dehydration (if it returns quickly they are not dehydrated).
• Keep a diary: if anything seems odd (off food, low activity, unusual stools, excessive drinking or no drinking), write it down. It’s the first thing the vet asked us and we didn’t have all the info to hand.
• If the dog seems even a little under the weather, go to a vet and insist on a blood test. Most of the vets we went to could do a test for the tick fever and give doxycycline treatment in 10 minutes for about € 10,-

General Health

• Get some good multivitamin diet supplement (liquid absorbs into the system faster).
• Anti-nausea solution: when Luna was slightly off food, we gave her a human anti-nausea (brand name Smecta) which helped a little. It’s something simple you can try if you are remote. It took us a while to decide we had to do it, but for 2 weeks at the end, we force-fed Luna blended food 40 minutes after we gave her the Smecta.
• Piriteze and paracetamol is also safe for dogs in the appropriate quantities for the weight of the dog.

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Diseases to watch out for / research (Africa-specific)

• The diseases that South Africa requires negative tests for in order for dogs to enter by air are the nasty ones to look out for:Brucella canis, Trypanosoma evansi, Babesia gibsoni, Dirofilaria immitis and Leishmania, Ehrlichia.

• Don’t rule out multiple infections. Ticks commonly carry more than 1 of the tick-borne diseases. We didn’t know this and when Luna has Babesia Canis, it is likely she also had Ehrlichia from the same tick but it was not showing in her blood yet (we only ever found 1 tick on her the whole trip). Luna had a loss of appetite and lower activity levels, which we continued to put down to the babesia she was recovering from but she had actually contracted the Trypanosoma.
• Incubation periods can be long and the parasite can retreat from the blood and the dog appears to have recovered, but the parasite is lurking in the organs. Luna ultimately died of liver, pancreas and nervous system failure just 3 days after seeming to recover (the Trypanosoma had completely cleared from her blood but was taking hold of her organs).
• Some of these diseases are particularly prevalent in the equatorial countries (Gabon, Congo, DRC, Angola… and Mozambique and Tanzania on the other side), but are present all the way from top to bottom.
• Be aware that some of these diseases are notifiable/ biohazard diseases (not allowed) in some countries as they are zoonotic (can be transferred to humans). This means that vets would technically put the dog down if found positive (esp. government vets/ facilities). Bear this in mind when choosing a vet (we got lucky).

Luna’s backstory

James rescued Luna from the streets of Puerto Rico at 3 months old. Since then, she has been right by James’ (and now Amy’s) side in everything we do. From fancy restaurants to wild camping and traveling through Africa, she came absolutely everywhere with us. She visited 30 countries in her life. In February, we found a starving, sick dog in Cote D’Ivoire and brought him with us to nurse him back to health on the road. As soon as Luna started playing with him and accepted him, we decided to keep him as her forever brother.

Would we do it all again? Would we recommend overlanding Africa with dogs?

This is not a simple question and one we battle with but ultimately, yes we would. Everything we do in life comes with risk. More adventurous things often come with more risk but are more rewarding and living life to the full. Luna lived many doggie lives in her one life with us.

There is a lot of scaremongering advice about overlanding through Africa in general and more so doing it with dogs. In reality, we didn’t have any near-misses with snakes or scorpions, no one wanted to shoot her or eat her. She didn’t come close to getting attacked by a lion or a crocodile or eating poison, or getting confiscated from us at borders. She just got unlucky with a Tsetse fly.

Conclusion

We are grateful that James and Amy have provided us with the information above. We hope it helps you to make well-informed decisions and set off on your adventure well-prepared.

In the months after receiving this information, we have had multiple people contacting us, sharing their stories of how they lost their dogs to tick-borne, but also Tetse-transmitted diseases.

Feel free to ask us any questions you think we can answer. Don’t be scared, but be prepared. Enjoy your adventure together!