I’ve had a few questions about the risks posed by heartworm in imported dogs to local dogs. (This also speaks to just how often we import heartworm-infected dogs, but that’s another story…). Here’s a bit of a deeper dive into the topic based on a fictionalized (but very typical) scenario:

You live in Guelph, Ontario

Parasites are pretty gross in general – both the organisms themselves, and the concept of them living in or on you. Some parasites are of limited concern to people and pets, but others not so much… If I made a list of “parasites I really don’t want,” Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) would be high on the

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