I am writing this from the Gold Coast in the middle of September, which means I am sitting inside the worst four weeks of the year for paralysis ticks and most of my neighbours think tick season starts at Christmas.
They are not being careless. It is what nearly everyone believes. It is also wrong, and the research showing it is wrong is Australian, large, and barely known outside veterinary circles.
Spring, not summer
Professor Stephen Barker at the University of Queensland analysed 22,840 tick paralysis cases across roughly twenty years, in four regions along the east coast. The finding, in his words:
The biggest danger period for dogs and cats occurs in spring and not in summer as most people would expect.
Not only that — cases fall away through January and February, the hottest months of the year, in every region studied. The season people brace for is the one that is already winding down.
If you have been putting tick prevention on the Christmas to-do list, you have been starting two to three months late, every year.
The peak where you live
| Region | Peak |
|---|---|
| Far North Queensland — Cairns, Innisfail | August – September |
| South East Queensland — Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast | September – October |
| Sydney — Northern Beaches and surrounds | October – November |
| Gippsland, Victoria | September – October and February – April |
There is a clear pattern in that table: the season starts earlier the further north you are, and rolls south. Far North Queensland is already in it by August. Sydney does not peak until the back half of October.
Victoria is the odd one out, and this is the detail Victorian owners most need. Gippsland has two separate peaks — one in spring like everywhere else, and a second from February through April. Queensland and New South Wales have one. A Victorian who relaxes after October has a whole second season coming.
The season never actually closes
Cases happen every month of the year, winter included. A peak is where the risk is highest, not where it begins and ends.
This is why veterinary advice has shifted to year-round prevention rather than seasonal. Professor Barker puts it more bluntly than I would: “Just one missed monthly dose can mean a matter of life or death for a dog.”
It is also worth knowing that not every source draws the line in the same place. PetSure, working from insurance claims rather than clinical cases, reports numbers climbing from August and peaking across October, November and December — later, and further into summer, than the UQ case data. That is national claims data against region-specific case data, which probably explains the gap. The practical takeaway is the same either way: start earlier than you think, and do not stop in December.
Where paralysis ticks actually live
The textbook range for Ixodes holocyclus is a strip roughly 20km wide along the eastern coast, running from Lakes Entrance in east Gippsland all the way up to near the northern tip of Queensland. Wet forest, humid, warm. Their natural hosts are bandicoots and possums — which is why a tidy suburban yard backing onto bush is not the safe place it looks like.
But that 20km coastal strip is out of date as a mental model, and this is the part I would most like Australian dog owners to take on board.
It is not just a beachside problem any more
RSPCA NSW now describes the range as Queensland, the NSW coast, down through Victoria, plus select inland regions. Reported hotspot lists for 2025 were dominated not by beachside suburbs but by Western Sydney — Parramatta, Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool, Blacktown, Fairfield — alongside the Central Coast, the Southern Highlands, Gympie, Ipswich and the Northern Rivers.
I grew up in Blacktown, chasing stray dogs around streets where nobody had heard the words “paralysis tick”. Seeing it on a hotspot list sixty years later was genuinely strange. If you live west of the city and have always assumed this was a problem for people with a beach house, it is worth updating that.
Tasmania and southern Victoria have their own
There is a second paralysis tick, Ixodes cornuatus, sometimes called the southern or Tasmanian paralysis tick. It is found in Tasmania and through central and southern Victoria, it looks very similar to its northern cousin, and it causes tick paralysis in dogs too. Southern owners who have been told paralysis ticks are a Queensland problem have been told something incomplete.
How common is it, really?
More common than most people imagine. A follow-up University of Queensland study modelling season intensity found that during the season, around one in ten of all veterinary consultations in affected areas was tick paralysis. Predicted rates for 2024 ran to roughly 10% of consultations on the Sunshine Coast, 7% on the Gold Coast, 5% in Brisbane, and 12% on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Twelve per cent. During spring on the Northern Beaches, better than one vet visit in eight is a tick.
What to actually do about it
- Work out your region’s peak from the table above, and start a month before it. Far North Queensland means July. South East Queensland means August. Sydney means September. Gippsland means August, and again in January.
- Dose year-round, not seasonally. Cases occur in every month. Put the dose date in your phone as a repeating reminder — a missed month is the single most common reason prevention fails.
- Search your dog every day in season regardless. Prevention products kill ticks after they attach and start feeding; they do not stop the tick getting on. Head, neck and ears first — that is where 73% of them are found.
- Do not assume your postcode is safe. The range has moved inland, and it is still moving.
If you have found a tick, or your dog is showing any sign of weakness, wobbliness or a changed bark, stop reading this page and go to what to do about a paralysis tick — or better, to a vet.
Sources
- University of Queensland — data uncovers new tick threat times for Australian pets
- Barker et al., “Two seasons of tick paralysis in Victoria yet one season in Queensland and New South Wales”, International Journal for Parasitology
- The weather determined how “hot” the tick paralysis season was in eastern Australia, 2018–2024
- RSPCA NSW — tick season, protecting your pet
- PetSure — tick paralysis claims data
- University of Queensland — paralysis ticks prefer heads and necks, 2025
This page is general information, not veterinary advice. If you think your dog has a paralysis tick, see a veterinarian immediately — do not wait until morning.