97 Tips for Raising Labs

Following are approximately 97 questions readers of BigYellowDog.com submitted in recent years. They were answered by a licensed veterinarian on the site as a general service to all Lab owners. This information is for general reference only. Always consult your veterinarian for any questions about your Lab's health. We hope this information is somewhat helpful. At this time, we are not accepting any more questions.

Question

We have a four-year-old male, black Lab who loves to frolic in the water. We set up a small child's plastic pool in our driveway to let him play and cool off in the water. While he is playing he playfully bites at the water and therefore swallows some, which isn't a problem. When we go camping and let him swim and play in Lake Ontario, he does the same - bites at the water and ingests the water. After about 15-20 minutes of water-play in the lake, he will usually come out and then has about 15 minutes of diarrhea. Then everything seems fine. My question is this, we are going on a trip to Virginia Beach in a few weeks and will be going to the beach. The state park allows pets to be on the beach and in the water. Question: Knowing how our dog likes to bite and ingest water, will the salt water be harmful to him as it would be if humans drank salt water? Thank you!

Answer

As you stated, your dog might get diarrhea or other stomach ailment from ingesting the salt water. I would recommend your dog drink plenty of bottled water on this trip so he will not dehydrate because of his ingesting the salt content in water. You might try shorter play periods. He won't ingest so much water at one time that way.

Return to List of Questions