Veterinarians in Shelburne County are trying to get the upper hand on out-of-control Lyme disease diagnoses in the region.

Staff at the the Jordan Branch Veterinary clinic in Shelburne are urging dog owners to visit their clinic today and get checked out.

Veterinary technician Ashley Stuart said most dogs showing up at the clinic are showing many of the same symptoms. If the dogs are vomiting, limping or have no appetite, Stuart said it's usually Lyme disease.

"To have a negative test actually, is surprising here," she said.

Stuart said based on the high number of cases their clinic is seeing, the ticks in Shelburne County are worse than ever before.

"We're seeing about 60 per cent of dogs test positive for Lyme disease or other tick-borne disease."

Nova Scotia's communicable disease coordinator, Dee Mombourqette, said Shelburne County is one of six zones in the province where Lyme disease is endemic, which means it's present and growing.

In fact, the Eastern Shore, Cape Breton and Annapolis Valley are the only areas where Lyme disease doesn't appear to be a problem.

"Once they become established, we go with that status quo that the tick population is there and it's probably not going to reverse," Mombourquette said.

Veterinarians say preventative measures like tick collars and topical drugs such as K-9 Advantix becoming are less effective. What is working, Stuart says, is the drug Bravecto — a pill that dogs take and repels ticks for three months at a time.

"People are just finding that the ticks are just falling off their dogs dead."

However, a representative for Bayer Inc., which makes Advantix tells CBC "veterinarians have affirmed that K9 Advantix remains highly effective against fleas and ticks. There is no evidence to contradict this."

The Shelburne vet clinic is having a walk-in Lyme disease testing all day today. It begins at 9 a.m. and runs until 12:30 p.m., then again from 1:30 p.m. and goes until 4 p.m.