Giardia is also endemic in some populations and in some areas of the UK with a high population of immigrants Giardia has become very common, this has been the case since the 1980s

I have two friends who are microbiologists and they have seen a huge increase in this and is one of the things they used to test for LAST now tested for FIRST.

Your vet would only be correct, H, if that mud contained faeces from an animal who had been infected with giardia. The only way to contract giardiasis is from faeces - either by directly ingesting faecal matter, such as in the case of our human sewage sludge, or from water contaminated with faeces which is contaminated with giardia.

Hal never ever had giardia, and he would drink out of the most disgusting puddles given half a chance, ditto Tai. It is only since they have been using HSS (since 200 in our village that we have had a problem with giardia. It is possible that the dew pond is or was contaminated with human or other animal faeces, but far more likely is that the farmers use HSS in your area as a nitrogen fertiliser? i can't remember if you have ever answered that question before, so apologies if you have and I've forgotten!!

Exactly SB ... and those immigrant populations are of course excreting their contaminated waste matter out into the sewers, which ends up in the sewage farms. It is the dewatered sludge that sinks to the bottom in the sewage farms that is spread on our fields now. This sludge is contamined not just with giardia, crypto, stapph, C-diff, e-coli, but of course all the carcinogenic heavy metals from the silver plating industry, from garages (battery acid etc.), factories, all who often illegally pour stuff down the drains that they shouldn't. All this carcinogenic material ends up on our fields, and thence on our cornflakes!! Nice!!

I suspect a dew pond might be contaminated with animal faeces because it's there for all the animals to drink out of, and yes, our local farmers DO use that human slurry on their fields/crops, it makes me heave when they're been out muck spreading coz it blows over here in the wind!

It's also interesting that cryptospiridium shows the exact, same symptoms, and yet that one is untreatable which is quite scarey isn't it! I spoke to my vet last week about that one coz I'd come across it whilst doing my research on the giardias.

I did read that giardia exists in the animal gut but that the immune system keeps it at bay, same as it does demodectic mange, but I would hardly think a 3 yr old gsd's immune system is compromised, unless of course, the previous attack of giardia has left her with this.

Now a question please, we only did a 5 day course, that's all the vet (and the 2nd one) wanted to do, so do I do the same next Monday or just a 3 day course please, would you know? I don't like to rely on my vet when I'm sure your dogs and yourselves have far more experience of treating this than they seem to have! I bet half of them don't even consider it for some of these poor dogs who have intermittent vomiting and yellow diarreah on and off do they!

At least we're well clued up now!

I should add that some animals, humans included, do have a better resistance to giardia infection than others. To give an example, my next door neighbour has repeatedly been infected with giardia, as have her dogs. However, her husband, who hails from St Petersberg (where giardia is rife in the tap water apparently), has never ever had an infection. He probably has a natural resistance to giardia, or at least is not seemingly harmed by the presence of giardia in his gut.

Thus it must be with our dogs as well. My husband has a theory that it is only hairy dogs - especially dogs with hairy feet - who get infected, certainly from the HSS on the fields. They pick it up on their feet, come home, and lick their feet. It is a good theory, and may have some truth. We do not know of one smooth coated dog in our area who has been infected, including my daughter's 3 chihuahuas.

Aha - that could be it, although aren't I right in saying that dewponds are always on top of a hill? Which would make run-off from contaminated areas less likely, but not impossible I suppose. Dogs are far more likely to contract giardia from HSS spread on fields though, or spores blowing in the wind, than from water, although of course it is possible to contract from water, as we know from St Petersburg!

Go for the 7 day H - with a big dog like Zena, it's no problem. I am sure I weigh more than Zena, but I took a course of Panacur for 7 days with absolutely no harm whatsoever. Poor old Tai and Ben have just finished yet another 7 day course, and are bouncing around like 2 year olds, full of the joys of spring!!

I think your husband is right on this, I actually read that on a lot of sites when researching giardia. It goes without saying doesn't it, when they have big clumps of hair between each pad where they tread in human/animal faeces all the time when out and about!

I also blame Zena's ball, it gets covered in dirt, I do my best to wipe it before shoving it back in her gob or chucking it again, and dirt is where this critter can live for years and years until it finds its next host!

the problem is when they are spreading the HSS. They obviously restrict it to the actual soil area, but the problem is it sticks to the wheels of the tractor, the tractor drives off the soil onto the set aside to go and load up with more sludge, and hence all the walkways, bridleways, footpaths etc. get contaminated. You cannot avoid it. And then the spores are so microscopic, it blows in the wind - feet from our bedroom windows, which are wide open every night. No wonder us and our dogs are continuously getting ill!

Thanks for that, I will! Zena is also bouncing around like a one year old, she's completely nutty, makes such a huuuuge different from seeing her so very ill lately, and for almost a whole year on and off and yet test after test came back negative from her stools, and they were going to endescope her and do lots of tests.

We have two dewponds, one has been there for donkey's years in a big field we can walk across (this is the one she went in), and it used to be concealed in overgrown shrubs and bushes, but they've recently exposed it all, and that water in the summer, gets rank with the sun belting down on it, no wonder it's full of nasties.

the other dewpond is a newly made one (on national trust land), it looks beautiful, all clean and new, surrounded by the obligatory barbed wire, but I'm sure one day we will......but then again, as I'm moving away I will have fresh water lakes for her to swim in!

Lovely!! But beware, even of lakes. There is a beautiful lake in Cumbria - I think it's called Entwater, or something like that, and due to people infected with giardia camping overnight on its shores and defecating in the area, giardia had become a serious problem in the lake.

It all comes back to being the fault of DEFRA allowing such a disgusting practice in the first place. It flies in the face of commonsense to go using human **** as a fertiliser.