Giardia and Hiking With Your Dog

In late July of 2001 Cinders and I were on a training exercise in a rugged region at the far northern end of Lunenburg County (the picture at left was taken that day). In the course of the trip Cinders stepped into what appeared to be a mass of wet dead leaves filling a crack in the granite outcropping we were traversing only to find out that it was actually a mass of dead leaves floating at the top of a very deep puddle of water filling a gap in the outcropping. She plunged in head first and I grabbed her harness in time to help her out before the rest of her went in.

Her entire front end was coated in a brown mess of rotted leaves that I took her to a nearby clear running stream to wash off. Soon, with Cinders restored to her former beauty, fresh smelling and no worse for wear, we continued on with what was a very enjoyable day.

That evening I noticed that Cinders was showing signs of a rapidly developing eye infection and was holding her head in a way that pointed to an ear infection on the same side of her head. Prepared for this sort of thing, I treated both and resolved to take her to our vet the next day. Later that evening she vomited back her entire meal and pretty much simultaneously developed explosive bouts of liquid diarrhea.

At the time I had six dogs of my own and four more were visiting from Florida with their owner who was trained as a veterinary technician. By the time I got Cinders to our vet the following morning she was dangerously dehydrated and several of the other dogs had also begun to show symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting, undoubtedly infected through use of the common water bowl.

Over the next five days there was little rest in my house. Stool samples were tested for all the normally encountered parasites and microbes, a couple of antibiotics were tried to little affect (except Cinders' eye and ear infections cleared), and each one of the eight dogs that had become ill was administered subcutaneous fluids every few hours to keep them hydrated. Without this latter procedure, administered by a qualified vet tech whom The Gods had decreed would "happen" to be visiting my house at the time, I have no doubt that some, if not all, of the affected dogs would have died.

After five days of little sleep, filled with treating sick dogs, cleaning up vomit and decontaminating a yard awash in liquid feces, I asked my vet if he had tested for giardia. He told me no, that there had never been any cases of giardiasis, the intestinal infection caused by the giardia parasite, documented in Nova Scotia. I presented him with a stool sample and asked him to humour me. The sample was couriered to PEI where, you guessed it, it tested positive for giardia cysts.

All the infected dogs were put on an antibiotic known to be specifically effective in the treatment of giardiasis and almost instantly showed improvement. The effect was like night and day. Diarrhea stopped so suddenly that my yellow Labrador retriever Sherlock got nicknamed "No Shit Sherlock" for a short time. In the end all was well.

The lesson here is that giardia is common THROUGHOUT North America including ALL parts of Canada. When hiking with your dog you should avoid letting them drink from or play in water that you wouldn't drink from or play in yourself. Easier said than done with real dogs in the real world I realize, but just be aware and if there is exposure you should note the location of the possible infection source as well as the time of exposure and watch over the next couple of days for any of the symptoms I described here. Giardiasis responds well to appropriate treatment so administering antibiotics prophyllactically isn't necessary, but PROMPT testing and treatment if they do appear IS.

Now get out there, pay attention, and play safe.