SARASOTA, Fla. — A Manatee County pet owner is warning others about a deadly disease that killed her dog earlier this year.
Marisa Villars said her dog, Millie, died just before her fourth birthday.
She said her dogs would often play in puddles or ditches around her home.
In November, her dog experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
"Here and there she'd have some diarrhea, same thing with sometimes eating, sometimes not eating then once and awhile same thing with vomiting, very sporadic," she said.
"She was a very picky, anxiety type dog so none of it was really like a huge red flag to us."
She later noticed her dog rapidly losing weight. She became concerned and brought her dog to a veterinarian.
Her dog was diagnosed with pythiosis after being infected by a water mold-like organism called Pythium insidiosum. It can affect the gastrointestinal tract or the skin and is most commonly found in water.
Dr. Zachary Pearl is owner of Vet Next Door in Parrish. He encourages pet owners to keep their dogs away from wetlands, swamps, and ponds.
"A lot of people have a funny term for it called swamp cancer. It basically becomes a mass like lesion that can cause like intestinal obstructions and chronic weight loss, vomiting, diarrhea and is ultimately fatal if it’s not caught early enough," said Dr. Zachary Pearl.
Dr. Pearl said symptoms include loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea and weight loss.
"I'd say it's more common kind of in the Gainesville area, Central Florida where there's more swampy land. We saw it a lot in Louisiana when I went to school at LSU," he said.
Villars wanted to share her story to educate other pet owners.
"We didn’t take our dogs in the Gulf. We didn’t go to the beach or anything with them. We immediately were both like we just had major flooding from the hurricanes," she said.
Dr. Pearl said flooding due to hurricanes could be a reason for recent cases in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Dr. Heidi Ward with Gulfcoast Veterinary in Sarasota said in the past 2 months, her office has seen six cases in dogs, four of those dogs have died.
Last year, Dr. Ward said she would see about one case every 2-3 months and those dogs did well.
Veterinarians encourage pet owners to avoid letting your dogs swim or drink water from stagnant, warm bodies of water including swamps, ponds, and wetlands.
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