Cleaning up after your dog isn’t really a difficult task. But by neglecting to remove dog waste increases health threats at parks (especially dog parks), playgrounds and even your own backyard. Parasites, such as hookworms and roundworms, may be found in animal waste and could very possibly transmitted to other dogs and to people.
Cleaning Up After Your Dog: The Statistics
A national survey of both dog owners and non-dog owners found:
- Almost half of dog owners refuse or don’t clean up after their dog.
- Almost 90% of owners use their own yards as a place for their dogs to go, but rarely clean up their yards.
- A majority of dog owners don’t know dog waste poses a threat to human health.
Threats from worms are constant without cleaning up after your dog:
Did you know: roundworm eggs can remain viable in soil for years. As a result, anyone who comes in contact with the soil can also come in contact with infected eggs. Children who play at the park or in your backyard and then put their hands in their mouth or near their eyes can get an infection.
It’s important to pick up after your pet and ensure that your dog is not the source of a parasitic infection. Ask your veterinarian about a once-monthly heartworm preventive, which in addition to preventing heartworm will treat and control intestinal parasites.
This is why you should always:
- Take your new puppy to be de-wormed.
- Scoop up after your pet and minimize spreading infections.
- Clean up properly after pets, especially in your yard. Be sure to rinse off any tools (poop-scoopers) and especially wash your hands afterwards.
- Sandbox in your backyard? A good idea to keep it covered to prevent animals from using it as a litter box.
- When out at local parks, be sure to have towelettes at the ready to wipe your child’s hands before heading home.
- Ask your veterinarian about medicine which treats and controls most species of roundworms and hookworms.
Be sure to pick up after your dog; and that doing so helps to keep your yard and neighborhood free potential health risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that an infected dog can easily transmit parasites to both humans and dogs easily.
At Dog Day Getaway, we clean our indoor and outdoor play areas daily to ensure proper health and well being of all of our guests, clients and staff.
