Dead groundhog in pool

[coffeeman]

Hi all
It seems like the animal was in pool for a few days as he was bloated and it smelled bad under solar cover.

Question; My daughter believes if the hog had rabies then it will never be safe to swim in pool. I believe a good shock treatment of the water will kill any bad stuff that could have come from hog. She is concerned and I said I'd post here as so many folks here have a lot of information on so many things. Put us all together and were the ultimate mind.

Cheers....Coffeeman

 

[MossRoad]

Somebody poisoned the water hole!

I'd check with your local pool supply place and follow their recommendations. They have probably dealt with this many times.

Personally, it gives me the creeps. When a kid poops in the public pool they close it for a few days while they treat it. And that's just for poop... although some of those kids seem kind of rabbid, too.

 

[Willl]

I ain't swimming in a public pool again.

 

[RonMar]

I had a run in with rabies a few years back, and received an education then. Our dog wrestled with a suspected rabid raccoon. Dog wasn't bit, but probably had saliva all over it when it shot back into the house and into our arms. We were probably exposed to the raccoon spit touching the dog. What I learned from the doc and the vet is that rabies is a VERY fragile virus. A temp change of a degree or so and it dies. It requires warm to warm contact such as saliva to blood directly during a bite to survive the transfer...

 

[toy]

Somebody poisoned the water hole!

I'd check with your local pool supply place and follow their recommendations. They have probably dealt with this many times.

Personally, it gives me the creeps. When a kid poops in the public pool they close it for a few days while they treat it. And that's just for poop... although some of those kids seem kind of rabbid, too.

When I was growing up we had two public pools, We always went swimming in the upper pool and if any kid had the poo urge he would go to the lower end of the pool and let her fly. When it left the pool it was immediately in the shoals and evedentally it broke up on its way down to the lower pool because I never heard of anyone complaining about getting hit with a log in the lower pool.

 

[MossRoad]

When I was growing up we had two public pools, We always went swimming in the upper pool and if any kid had the poo urge he would go to the lower end of the pool and let her fly. When it left the pool it was immediately in the shoals and evedentally it broke up on its way down to the lower pool because I never heard of anyone complaining about getting hit with a log in the lower pool.

YUK! ICKY!! EWW!!!

 

[riptides]

Those shock treatment really do work. I'd be more worried with the stuff you don't see taking advantage of your water source. Neighbors, noctural critters, reptiles, etc. etc.

 

[Double Orange]

My wife uses this site for all her pool questions.
Very helpful people who KNOW what a pool needs.
Trouble Free Pool • Portal

 

[jdbower]

Kids learn quick, don't they? Unfortunately we live in a fear-based society and anyone who's watched the evening news knows that the best way to stop something you don't want is to say it's dangerous. I can understand not wanting to swim in a pool with a bloated critter floating in it for a few weeks, it's a sentiment I share. But I also understand logically that it's really a primal fear that prevented my ancestors from drinking potentially tainted water - perhaps succumbing to the same thing that killed the critter if it wasn't drowned. This fear still lives in our psyche but it no longer has a place in the world of chlorinated pools and modern medicine. If it makes you and your daughter feel better you can drain the pool and start from scratch next season, but I doubt there's a medical reason to do so. If you're paranoid you can bring the corpse into a vet for testing to see if it had the disease and to confirm that rabies can't survive in a pool (but I'd call first, they may want you to use the back door ).

As for draining the pool because of an "accident", that's probably an overblown fear as well but there could be a grain of truth depending on the manifestation. All animal waste products are loaded with living organisms that help us digest our food. For the most part these organisms can't pass from species to species (with some notable exceptions like e.coli and some other diseases), but something that came out of a human can obviously survive in the human digestive tract and is therefore much more dangerous. Every healthy person has a resistance to his specific colonies, but introduce a new colony and it can cause issues. This is why (except for e.coli issues) cow manure can be used for fertilizer but you shouldn't just pump your cesspool over the fields. Where's the irrational part? It's not likely that these things can survive for any real time in chlorinated water in a pool so this may just be the benefactors of a public pool (tax payers or members) thinking it's gross and worth wasting millions of gallons of water to clean it up.

It's also possible that the local news channels created an irrational fear that chlorine in pools causes cancer or autism or whatever the fear-du-jour is and the chlorine levels are down to dangerous levels so they wouldn't kill all the microbes. In this case it's also a false sense of security because I'm sure all you parents out there know the level of hygiene of the thousands of toddlers that go swimming every year - floaters represent only a small amount of the sources for these microbes. Anyone up for a swim in a public pool?

Just remember, our civilization is dependent on the widespread belief that the urine-detecting dye they add to pools is not an urban legend. At least it's sterile...

 

[jinman]

When I was growing up we had two public pools, We always went swimming in the upper pool and if any kid had the poo urge he would go to the lower end of the pool and let her fly. When it left the pool it was immediately in the shoals and evedentally it broke up on its way down to the lower pool because I never heard of anyone complaining about getting hit with a log in the lower pool.

Gosh! I hope RaT doesn't read this thread. He'll be sick and thowin' up for weeks.

 

[EddieWalker]

I was exposed to rabies when I was stationed in Cameroon. My pet dog got sick and then died rather quickly. Because rabies is so common there, we had him tested for it, which turned out to be positive. Bats and Rats are the two main carriers, but just about any mammal will carry it.

The thing that bothered me the most about Rabies is there is no cure for it. There was that girl a few years ago that survived, but she's one of the only people to have done so. It can live in your body for a year or more before infecting your nervous system. Once this happens, you are dead.

The only cures are for becoming exposed to it. The vacines and medicines work really good for this, but again, it's only for killing the virus when it's dormant in your body.

There's probably newer, better stuff out there, then when I got it in 1985. In my case, I had the pre-exposure shots as part of my required shots by the Marine Corps. One shot when getting to Cameroon, the second shot a month later and the third shot a few months after that. It might have been six months for that third shot, I don't remember for sure since it seemed like we were always getting a shot for something.

The only way to check for Rabies is to examine the skull and spine. It's most common in the skull, but in my case, they found it in the spine of my dog.

Why does your daughter think it had rabies?

If you suspect that it had rabies, the thing to do is call the animal control officer and have it tested. If there is rabies in your area, it's important to find out so that precautions can be taken.

Since she's already freaked out by it being in the water, I don't know if any amount of treatment will be enough. It's probably not about the water, or how clean it is, but that the water had a rotting ground hog in it. Yuk.

I'd either drain it and refill it, or drain it and close it down for the year.

Eddie

 

[mjarrels]

In the Philippines, it is referred to as a floation device! Once watched a kid float down S@$t river holding onto a bloated pig!

mark

 

[Double Orange]

You sound like one of those Alongapo Raiders!
Been There !

 

[dmccarty]

The pool we go to has had a kid poop in the pool twice this summer. The pool gets shut down and I assume they super chlorinate.

This should kill must things but I just read about Crypto(sp) that is a virus that killed a bunch a people in the Midwest a few years ago. Chlorine wont kill Crypto unless very high levels are used. The article said that the high levels of Chlorine were not safe for humans. I assume, the article was unclear on this, that it was unsafe for consumption.

I used to sorta clean pools years ago. My Saturday job was to check the trash dumpster areas and the pools in a retirement development. There were 19 pools/dumpster areas. This had to be done in the early morning because the raccoons like to poop in the pools. Usually on the steps. We would just net out the "stuff". If I resident saw it we would have to drain the pool and refill. I was told that the chemicals would kill the wee beasties but the residents would complain if they saw the mess and did not drain/refill.

Interesting bit of trivia, the man I worked for, Troy Burress, was a family friend. He was executed by Aileen Wuornos one of the few women serial killers. Troy had moved away and was I believe a delivery man for Oscar Meyer products to stop and robs stores. He pulled into a store to make a delivery according to the clerk but Troy never made it inside. They found is body surrounded by cash on a nearby road. He had been shot in the back. Aileen like to say her men attacked her which really infuriated us since Troy was obviously kidnapped and murdered. Troy was a real good guy.

Anywho, sorry for the downer, just raccoon poo made me think of Troy.

Later,
dan

 

[BX2230Dude]

As far as the crap goes, what's the difference if someone poops in one bunch or if you have a 100 rears with bits and pieces of poop washed out of their rears. You don't see it because it's very small pieces.

Now there's a disturbing mental image....

 

[dmccarty]

Now there's a disturbing mental image....

Yep, and no comments from RaT......


Later,
Dan

 

[toy]

YUK! ICKY!! EWW!!!

We only had one kid that did that and we expressed our strong displeasure in it and let him know if he did it again and got caught we would give him a little corporal punishment. How do you get a smillie to attach to your post?

 

[riptides]

We only had one kid that did that and we expressed our strong displeasure in it and let him know if he did it again and got caught we would give him a little corporal punishment. How do you get a smillie to attach to your post?

Like this? Type : ) without the space between them.

 

[tallyho8]

How do you get a smillie to attach to your post?

When you are posting a "quick reply", click on the "go advanced" link and you will have a choice of many different smilies.