SALT LAKE CITY — A popular Salt Lake County dog training center is closed after half a lots dogs passed away following check outs to the training premises.
On the edges of the Lee Kay Wildlife Conservation Training location, gates sat closed Wednesday throughout the dirt roadway entryways. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources-branded banners throughout eviction mentioned the location was closed “due to possible contamination.”
According to the DWR, which owns and handles the location, 6 dogs in the exact same group just recently passed away and the Utah Division of Water Quality discovered a possible poisonous bacterial development on the edges of among the ponds.
Grady Southwick, who takes his Labrador retriever Piper to the training location typically, said they checked out with his kid, friend and their dogs on May 1. Piper was the very first dog in their group to leap in the water.
He’s presently training his 2-year-old puppy to be an AKC Senior Hunter, as they prepare yourself for duck hunting this fall.
Everything appeared fine, till not long after they returned home.
“Later that afternoon, about 4 o’clock, she started groaning, moaning, making kind of a, you know — you could tell something was wrong,” Southwick stated. “She wouldn’t stand still. She wouldn’t lay down…she wouldn’t eat. She went outside and threw up a few times.”
He said Piper’s condition continued to aggravate as the night went on. She started to have convulsions.
They made an emergency situation veterinarian see, however the veterinarian couldn’t find out what was taking place.
Piper continued to be ill for 3 days, and he said she couldn’t hold down liquids and wouldn’t consume food. His partner remained by Piper’s side the whole time.
“We thought we were going to lose her at one point,” Southwick said.
Because none of the other dogs in his group got ill, Southwick didn’t understand what to believe.
Then today, he found out Piper wasn’t the only dog to get ill after going to the Lee Kay Wildlife Conservation Training premises.
“Six dogs had got sick, perished…and I thought, wait a minute, we were there two weeks before them. Something’s kind of up,” he said.
DWR representative Faith Heaton Jolley explained a fitness instructor at the training location for 8 days with 13 dogs reported seeing a few of the dogs consuming a crusty, salt-like layer on the turf on the edge of the pond on May 17.
He called the dogs back, she said, and put them in their kennels. Later in the day, the dogs started to throw up and have diarrhea.
“He took one of the dogs to the vet at midnight that same day, and then around 6:30 a.m. the next morning, the decision, unfortunately, was made to euthanize that dog,” Jolley said. “And then over the next couple of days, five more dogs, unfortunately, were either euthanized by the vet or ended up dying of cardiac arrest. And they’re thinking probably due to kidney and liver failure.”
The occurrence was reported to DWR on May 20.
She said among the 6 departed dogs is going through a necropsy for illness screening so they can ideally figure out the real cause of death.
In the meantime, DWR shut down the whole location, and Utah Division of Water Quality teams headed out to the pond and took water samples. They discovered a bacterial development on the edge of the water that can be lethal to dogs.
“They did say there was some growth likely that they think was partially composed of cyanobacteria on the grass growing along the edge of the water,” Jolley said. “And they have seen cases where dogs have become ill or died from consuming these kinds of cyanobacteria mats. And the mats sometimes contain these lethal levels of toxins that target the liver or neurological system of dogs.”
Jolley said that they are still waiting on the test results to verify how the dogs passed away.
Two retriever club occasions happened the weekends prior to and after the May 17 occurrence. Clubs associated with the occasions informed KSL television that numerous dogs went to the occasions, and it didn’t appear any other occurrences were reported.
Jolley said a substantial nationwide retriever occasion was expected to occur at the Lee Kay Wildlife Conservation premises this weekend however has actually been canceled.
They aren’t sure the length of time the closure will last, or what the possible clean-up of the damaging germs will appear like.
Southwick said it took about a week and a half for Piper to restore her strength and energy.
She is feeling back to typical, and he is feeling lucky she made it through.
“We love her,” he said. “She’s a great little dog and she’s part of our family.”
