Dogs and Sulcatas

[aromaff16]

I have come to the conclusion from previous posts that my Sulcata, Spike, needs to be outside much more than he is. I am going to Menards later to see what I can come up with to make him a pen. I have a huge fenced in back yard. I would like to be able to take him out of his pen, and let run freely in the back yard from time to time, not unsupervised of corse. My concern is we have 4 dogs. I have read many instances mixing dogs and tortoises ending in a tragic blood bath and have no intentions of puting them in the backyard together. My concern is that with 4 dogs, there is obviously a lot of dog poo that gets deposited in the back yard, it gets cleaned up regularly but in the chance that a "landmine" gets missed and Spike comes across it, are there any health concerns for him?

 

[JoesMum]

He will enjoy the dog poop as a dietary supplement. Whether he should is another matter. Do you worm your dogs regularly?

 

[Yvonne G]

If the dogs are given medication for heartworm, and the tortoise eats that dog poop, the tortoise will die. Also, if you use Ivermictin to de-worm your dogs (or horse, etc) and the tortoise eats that poop, the tortoise will die.

 

[aromaff16]

The dogs were wormed when they were puppies. They get check ups at the vet regularly and have never had worms since. And we dont treat for heart worm so that shouldnt be an issue.

 

[Tom]

You SHOULD have your dogs on a heartworm preventative.

And your tortoise needs his own area where the dogs cannot get to him or leave "land mines" behind for him.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Re: RE: Dogs and Sulcatas

If the dogs are given medication for heartworm, and the tortoise eats that dog poop, the tortoise will die. Also, if you use Ivermictin to de-worm your dogs (or horse, etc) and the tortoise eats that poop, the tortoise will die.

I don't have dogs but I'm curious about this.
Is it for certain that eating worm treated dog poop would kill them, or is it just a caution because of a possibility of it? Like, possibility the way blindness from compact uv bulbs is a possibility?

Heather
Sent from my Android TFO app

 

[Yvonne G]

Those types of de-wormers (poisons) are toxic to tortoises. They die within minutes of ingesting them. If I'm not mistaken, the heartworm de-wormer is Ivermectin. Ivermectin is also a horse de-wormer. Please don't EVER get confused when de-worming your tortoise. NEVER use ivermectin. Panacur is just fine, along with Flagyl.

 

[Tom]

If the dogs are given medication for heartworm, and the tortoise eats that dog poop, the tortoise will die. Also, if you use Ivermictin to de-worm your dogs (or horse, etc) and the tortoise eats that poop, the tortoise will die.

I don't have dogs but I'm curious about this.
Is it for certain that eating worm treated dog poop would kill them, or is it just a caution because of a possibility of it? Like, possibility the way blindness from compact uv bulbs is a possibility?

Heather
Sent from my Android TFO app

Like any other poison, this would depend on how much they ingested, how recently the dog had been given the medicine, etc...

Ivermectin in any quantity IS toxic to tortoises, but any animal can ingest a certain quantity of something toxic and be fine. You can ingest a certain amount of cyanide and show no ill effect, but if you ingest just a little too much...

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Gottcha. Yikes

Heather
Sent from my Android TFO app

 

[jaizei]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6689009