Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Warning: Dog Water Can Grow Tadpoles

During my morning cleaning today I decided it was time to rinse out Daisy's water bowl and give her some fresh water. As I lifted the almost empty bowl to the sink I noticed many little black things floating around in it. Crumbs, right? WRONG! When I took a closer look I realized that the crumbs were not floating, they were swimming. Wait, crumbs don't swim. Something has to be alive to swim. These crumbs were most definitely alive. Yes, there were LIVE organisms in my dog's water this morning. Very alarmed and a little bit intrigued, I poured the water into a clear bowl so I could get a better look:


In the water were LOTS of little tiny tadpole looking things. Most of me was terribly disgusted, embarrassed, and worried about the health of my dog and children, but a small part of me was slightly excited and felt like a microbiologist examining scientific findings. Ron assured me that this was NOT a reflection of my cleanliness as I started to get upset that I had a "dirty" house. He also assured me that it was NOT a problem with our drinking water, therefore it was not necessary to contact the local news channels, the Department of Public Health, or the Police. And yes, I contemplated calling the police. Like they would arrest the tadpoles or something... (More likely, they'd probably arrest me for negligence and animal endangerment)

Ron's explanation was that this happens outside all the time when water is left standing for long periods of time, and with all the crazy rain we've had Daisy probably just carried something in on her beard. Her water bowl is one of those self-filling kinds and since she is so little, it lasts for a really long time before it needs to be filled again. Probably a week or more... So I guess a that's enough time to grow tadpoles. EEEEWWW. I am still grossed out when I think about it, and will be using a Brita filter for all of our drinking water... just in case. Oh, and I'll be changing her water bowl with A LOT more frequency from now on.

7 comments:

Kathryn said...

That's is so gross!!! Funny but still gross!!!

alyssa said...

That is funny. Your mom told me about it this morning. I totally didn't believe her and then I went into panic mode about the water making sure it wasn't another microrganism scare.....Holy cow, just so weird, who would have thought...

Jen said...

too funny. now I have to go and check our cats water bowl.

coco said...

Most likely culprit is mosquitos (in my not-so-professional opinion.)

Mary Ellen said...

Good thinking, Coco. We did have lots of mosquitos in the house the other night because the door was open while my husband worked in the garage...

kathleen said...

thank you mary ellen for posting your story...i've had a decorative pond and 'family' dogs here in a country setting for 13 years and NEVER experienced what i saw when i cleaned out my automatic INSIDE dog water dish this morning...live squirmy things in the dish...i too panicked...i'm a clean hosekeeper, so i felt like: what did i do wrong, but mostly i was thinking my 'guys' have picked up worms (even though they were tested at the vet for their yearly check up about a month ago)...i was kinda freaking out, but, before i bothered my vet on a sunday, i decided to calm down and google the problem and wal-ah...here is your post...yey!..at least i don't feel alone and as stupid as i did a minute ago...i do have a question for you though: since i can't reach my vet...do you know if by 'drinking the tadpoles', so to speak...it will affect the dogs in any way? ...i have two bernese mountain dogs and a golden, so they are pretty big pups...come to think of it though...they prefer to drink out of the pond, and do so on a regular basis, so they've probably been downing tiny tadpoles for years!...wow, the things you just never think about?...well mary ellen thanks again for posting your story and i will bookmark this site as i can't believe i found the exact info i was looking for! (especially since your post on this subject was so recent, isn't it amazing how HE takes care of us and our/his creatures?)...i'll be sure to check things out here on a regular basis...have a grreat weekend everybody!...it's me...kathleen in maryland

kathleen said...

i'm a new google account holder...can anyone tell me how to post a photo next to my name?...it's always so much nicer to know who we are talking to!

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