Ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, it can also be deadly to our dogs.

A friend of mine lost her once-in-a-lifetime dog to a waterborne illness I'd never heard of. Since I spend a lot of time in and around water with my dog, I thought it would be wise to educate myself. (This is in VA.)

The disease I am talking about here is pythiosis. It is a fungus-type of thing and has been gaining ground in the US over the past 10 years or so. It is found in warm standing fresh water (ponds, marshes, etc.), but can also live on wet grass. As far as I've been able to glean from reading a bunch of sites, there isn't a test yet to tell if a particular body of water is infested with it.

With dogs, it generally presents as a GI distress thing, including weight loss. If it's not caught early enough, it's nearly impossible to treat successfully.

It's been found in the US in AL, AK, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IL, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX and VA.

Here are a couple of links for more info:

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/dog/health/fungal/Pythiosis.php

http://www.pythiosis.com/

Another danger I've recently become aware of is more midwestern located, and is from blue-green algae blooms in water. Apparently, all the fertilizer, pet waste and farm runoff has been altering the balance of nutrients in the lakes enough that when combined with the right temperature and sunlight conditions, creates these blue-green algae blooms. They can be many colors . The thing here is to avoid water that has scummy stuff on the surface, whatever the color.

While I've never let my dog swim in scummy water, I would not have thought twice before about using local ponds and such (we have one on our new rental property, in fact, that I thought would be nice to use...). I'll definitely be sticking with larger bodies of water that have a clearly obvious flow to them.

Ugh!

leih

Wow! Thank you Leih, for bringing this to our attention and for the info you posted. Until now, I had never heard of this.
I live in Texas so I appreciate the heads up!

While I never let my dogs swim in standing water, it does say it can live on grass. We have many areas where there are bayou's (sp?) and I have seen some let their dogs run in there, so the spores could be tracked up to the park grasses etc.
Good to know info!

Thanks for sharing and links. Sorry to hear of your friend's loss. I've had 2 now with fungal infections (different spores) regardless it is a terrible disease process. Often fungals are not high on the initial rule out list and time is so precious to start treatments. The more information you know and the more you can share with the vet in addition to the presenting symptoms, the quicker a diagnosis can be made. My vet kept telling me pancreatitis, I kept saying no you need to keep looking. Anyways, I appreciate the post.

Pretty soon mine are going to be allowed outside only when wearing some type of astronaut suit.

Leih, so sorry to hear of your friend's loss.

Ugh is right! I did not need another worry, and I'd like my blissful ignorance back.

You beat me to it, Aimee. My dog is going to be the first canine "Bubble Boy" if this keeps up.


Edited by Meredith Hamilton (06/03/2010 11:06 PM)
Edit reason: spelling

I know exactly how you guys feel. I keep waiting for one of the members who knows a lot about environmental biology to post something like, "you think that sucks, listen to this."

leih