We moved house about six months ago and have now aquired a fish pond. The thing is my boxer Roxy seems to only drink the pond water no matter how fresh the water is in her bowl she insists on the pond water. Has anybody any ideas why she prefers the pond water and how to stop her. It makes me want to throw up and I do keep trying to stop her and give her her bowl of fresh water but she wont drink it.

I cant tell you why she's drinking the water,but you can buy mesh covers for ponds,the ones which stops the birds fishing the fish out,your dog wont be able to get through it to get a drink :)

Hi LL,

If you read the following link

(sorry, have now copied info on post below) you may just want to investigate a way to put her off - appears it can prove very dangerous in warm weather :(

Of the 5 BSDs I've lived with, three of them have been terrible for preferring to only drink very cold water (perhaps that's the attraction of the pond?), so I watch them like a hawk outside with puddles and indoors they gorge themselves immediately the water bowls have just been changed :rolleyes: - which isn't a big deal of course except that they barf it back up again by overdoing it!

Regards, Teri :)

Those new fairly to dogs may not be aware of the dangers of letting dogs drink, swim, paddle or play with other dogs which have been in still water traps/ponds now the weather is becoming warm.
Blue green alga is a spore which has spread throughout UK still waters over this past 20 years or so. Some councils do put warnings up by some of their ponds but not all and almost never at private land or country ponds/water traps such as those shallow water holding dips which only hold water for a few days.
The spores become active in the first few warm days of spring, sooner in the south than the north. If your dog is affected there is no antidote and the spore attacks the liver heart, spleen and more which I do not know about, an excoriating death is the only outcome-there is nothing anyone can do if a contamination occurs and death can take an agonising couple of says, shock usually occurs first.
So, if you do not have a reliable recall then your dog is at risk and needs to be kept away from still water as a safeguard or put on a lead if near still water ponds/traps.

My dog has always preferred to drink from our pond (she is 3 now) and it has never harmed her.  We do have a filter on our pond though and OH says it is probably better quality than we drink!

Fiona

Hi Fiona,

Glad your dog's OK - but thought it worth posting the warning anyway - better to make an informed choice ;)

Couldn't get the link to work but if you go into search and then type "water" into keywords and "Davedee" into posted by, you and the OP will be able to read the entire thread plus a couple of extra links on there.

Regards Teri

ps. can't believe I'm recommending a thread by that guy  :rolleyes: - still, it's unique in that it's "zap free"  :D :D :D

I had two Jack Russells who lived to 12 and 16 who both point blank refused to drink out of anywhere other than the pond.  The one we have now is fully filtered etc but the old one never had any filtration.

Got to say that thread though does look worrying!

Thank you all for replying, my pond is filtered but i never realised it could be so potentially dangerous to let her drink the water. Will definately try not to let her drink it.

If the water is cotinuously being moved then I think it is safe, it is only still water/non-aireated (sorry sp is bad) so in theory if your pond has a good filtration system, fountain etc etc it should be o.k. May be wrong though.

I just checked with my husband and he remembers there was a big thing about this on the news and it more concerning the green scum that goes over some ponds in the general public areas not garden ponds unless they are natural ones.  I hope that helps.

LOL Teri, but you can't have E-C's near water or they will fry the dog - maybe that's why it's a zap free zone! :p

True :D  (but there's always the fencing it off ....... )
Gives me the creeps!

Teri :)

Oooooooooo maybe it's the fencing that zaps instead!

Dana dana dana dana dana dana dana ZAP MAN..................."lightning bolts shoot out of his fingers"...

gonna be in trouble now aren't we?

do we care?

Noooooooooo

"ZAAAAP" <<<thud>>> ;-)

:D  LOONEY

I thought it was only me  

Running scared now, Teri

OMG!

We've created a MONSTER!
:D

would...answer...still...twitching...need time...to...to...to...recover....euuughhh...

:D  @ colliesrus

Wonder if her lights have gone out   it's a "Genie" thing   ;)

S'ok I'm just coming twitch round twitch. Think I'll be alright as long as I keep my rubber shoes on. twitch

I never saw him coming, just this bright light, then it all went dark...I'll never forget that laugh though. It was a real crackle.

I'll have nightmares for weeks now, save yourselves Champdoggers, before it's too late...

Dana, dana, dana, dana....."Rrrruuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn"

ZAAAAAAP

Haha, saved by my rubber shoes, take that Zap Man! <<<wields the power of her water pistol>>>

And this is just the beginning of me flexing my powers

Neat, huh :D :D
just got to get Margot to show me how to do the dust thing :rolleyes:

You'll have to cheat :D :D :D

Margot

¸... ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
    ¸..´ ..´¨¨))
  ((¸¸..´ ...´ -:¦:-
  -:¦:-   ((  °º¤
            -:¦:- Chill-out dust everywhere! -:¦

¸... ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
    ¸..´ ..´¨¨))
  ((¸¸..´ ...´ -:¦:-
  -:¦:-   ((  °º¤
            -:¦:-

Yeah, I'm a witch and a cheat - those girls should be soooo proud :D :D :D

Margot is an anagram of "Got Ram" - sounds sort of "sacrificial" to me ......   Teri 

Inhale deeply, inhale deeply

Hey maaaannnnnnn, how's it hanging? That chill out dust is like, so totally radical dude. Can you see the fairies too, man? Their just such like, peaceful babes

"We are sailng, we are sailing........'cross the water, with the dust..........."



Hey T. Wanna join my Covern?

p.s. Got Ram is already in one!

I reckon I need to hone my craft a little longer - Chloe & Mel have only recently invited me into the dark side and perhaps it would be foolish of me to sever my allegiance during this delicate phase of learning.  *whispers* the Genie has hexed me already with exploding lightbulbs so I'm laying low

Perhaps now that I have the dust recipe I am safer ....... but keep this between ourselves

Anon, but like the plan
ps have you been drinking from the still pond?  

How did you know about the still pond? Have you been spying on me? Mmmmmmmmmmm?

I think you have been corrupted by those dust worshippers. Begone evil dust spirits...

p.s. Do you think we may have breached the ToS by hyjacking the thread into a different, er, 'direction'?



Hi Teri, thanks for that thread.  I have noticed signs where I sometimes walk Saffy about the algae, but didn't realise that it can be passed to one dog from another! :(

The pond in our garden from which our dog drinks has a pump which is constantly moving the water through the filter, so I would think this should be okay for her, although she has also started drinking from a trough which collects rainwater (I will have to stop her drinking from that)

Fiona

Hi Fiona,

Sorry if thread's gone a little crazy - it must be a full moon or something ;)  Anyway, I don't pretend to know much about the blue algae thing except what you've now read too but it made me sit up and think because I have a lot of different watery areas close by to where I exercise my own dogs and in summer months some are quite still and I'd never given it any thought before.  Like you, certainly not about anything being "passed one to the other".   I think as others have pointed out having a filter in a garden pond or an area where water is flowing is safe - but hey, as we all love our dogs it does no harm to be aware of possible dangers and then if we think it's necessary we can take precautions :)  Regards, Teri

 

Full moon? Crazy? Moi?

Anyway, yeah, sorry about that Fiona, I was under the influence of this lot and their 'dust'. Personally I think their all smoking it rather than sprinkling it about:p

TTFN

Don't you try and steal the credit for crazy behaviour around here  :D

ps. how come you got the "dust" - I didn't :( 

How did I get the dust? It's called passive smoking, they smoked it, I breathed deeply. Any ideas of how long it takes to wear off?