Here’s a question I get surprisingly often.

I found a dead raccoon (or raccoon poop) in my pool and I’m freaking out about raccoon roundworms. What should I do?

The raccoon roundworm, Baylisascaris procyonis, is certainly a parasite of concern, but it’s also one that often leads to over-reaction and panic. While it can

Imagine you’re a vet doing an exploratory abdominal surgery in a dog. You’re poking around in the belly and feel something abnormal. You grab it and as you pull it out of the abdomen to have a look, you see it’s a red tubular structure. As you continue to pull (and pull, and pull), it

Around here, infection in dogs caused by Leishmania infantum typically comes up in the context of imported dogs, particularly those from countries around the Mediterranean (e.g. Greece, Israel, Spain).  This parasite is usually transmitted between a variety of mammalian species, including dogs and humans, by certain species of sandflies.  We’re quite lucky here in Ontario

People sometimes get frustrated when I won’t say “absolutely, positively that cannot happen.” It’s not that I don’t understand or am afraid to make a decision, it’s biology. I can say something is “exceedingly unlikely to happen,”not something I’d be concerned about” or
there’s no evidence that’s a concern