My dog ate goose poop.

Dr. Marie replied:

For some reason dogs LOVE to eat goose poop. I have no idea why this would be attractive to them.

The good news is that it is really unlikely that a dog would get sick from eating goose feces.

You will read in several places online that dogs can get a parasite called giardia from eating goose poop. This is not true. The type of giardia that affects geese is very host-specific which means that even if a dog ingested it, they would not get sick.

It is, in theory, possible for a goose to spread bacteria through their feces. Goose poop can contain salmonella and campylobacter. Most of the time a dog's intestinal tract is pretty resilient to a bacterial infection with either of these. But, if I was seeing a dog in my office who had diarrhea that was not going away, and if I knew that that dog regularly ate goose poop I would likely be doing some extra tests to look for campylobacter or salmonella. However, I can tell you that in 12 years of practice I've seen a LOT of dogs who eat goose poop and I've never diagnosed a problem because of it.

Max should be just fine. If he gets diarrhea that is lasting more than 48 hours then your vet may put him on antibiotics in case of bacterial contamination, but I would be surprised if this happened!



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