I hope that's a piece of string...?

Sorry for the continued lack of regular postings but between finishing requirements for ISU, packing, and working at the Doggy Daycare I haven't had much spare time- or interesting things to write about.

I opened at the Doggy Daycare yesterday, and noticed a bright whitish, smooth string-like thing sticking out of one of the dog's morning... defecations. It is very common to see string, carpet fibers, bits of toys or other chewed up debris in dog waste here, but this just seemed a little too clean and smooth looking. A moment later I noticed it wriggling.

A WORM!

After my initial moment of  "eww... I guess I won't be finishing my breakfast after this" at the site of a worm in poo at 7:00am, I was really excited! Why? Because I LOVE parasites! (Albeit, not as much as I love microbes) I especially love and excel at the microscopic identification of them (parasitic egg identification is way... FUN! Some even look like footballs!). This being a case of macroscopic discovery, I am not as well practiced in that and isolated the dog until we could be sure if it could be potentially spreadable to the other boarded dogs.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really keep a sample because it was already mixed up with the waste of several other dogs in the scooper, and I didn't particularly want to dig out the worm at 7 in the morning... What I saw was roughly 1/2" long, yellowish in color that turned to white when it stretched out, fairly round and smooth. Any guesses on what it was? Something like this:

After a quick call to the dog's vet and a description of the worm, she was certain it was TAPEWORMS! [Did you guess right?] We picked up 2 pills for the dog and that's that! Easy peezy...

Fun fact: A dog with tapeworms at a boarding facility poses no risk of spreading infestation to the other dogs! Why is that? Part of the reason I find parasites so fascinating! Parasites tend to have rather finicky life cycles; one in a primary (intermediate) host, and another cycle in the final secondary host. For tapeworms, dogs are a "dead end" if ingested at the adult or larval stages and simply die in their digestive track. In order for a dog to become infested it has to ingest the tapeworm while it is in it's primary "intermediate" host. The primary is infected by ingesting the eggs of the tapeworm- this host can be a small mammal (rat, rabbit, mouse, etc.) or a flea. *Note there are other varieties of tapeworms that have different hosts that a dog can be susceptible to, such as sheep.* A dog would then pass eggs back to primary hosts to become infested. Same goes for human infestations. Cool h'uh? To illustrate:

 The adult tapeworm is usually not seen to diagnose it, in this case I noticed some larvae squirming around, but you can also see the proglottids- or egg filled segments of the adult- that break off and are released into the feces.

Just another day at the Doggy Daycare! If you want to know a little more about the topic here is a website that has a nice little summary of tapeworm infection in dogs:   Dog Health Doc: Tapeworm Infection


And as a final parting personal complaint- It is NOT my fault that we are booked out 9 weeks for grooming. Why don't you go complain to the other 2 groomers in town that are no longer accepting new clients? At least we are trying to accommodate the town's grooming needs. Take your bitchy 'tude elsewhere, thanks! :)