Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
An Ontario woman is warning dog owners of the dangers of blue-green algae after her puppy ingested the toxic bacteria and died within hours.
Stephanie Cross said she and her family got a Doberman puppy named Zoe in August of last year.
“She was such an amazing dog. We have three young boys and she was just amazing. Literally, the perfect dog,” she told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Thursday.
Last week, Cross and her family and their one-year-old puppy visited friends who had a small man-made pool filled with algae, lily pads, and frogs on their property. She said they had recently pumped the water out of the pool because they were planning to fill it in.
“They pumped out pool and what came out of the pool was all that gunk and like pine cones and whatever else was in the pool,” she explained.
Cross, who lives in King City, Ont., said Zoe had eaten some of the “gunk” from the pool, but they didn’t think anything of it at the time because the puppy was always eating stuff outside.
“She eats sticks and like all different things. She’s a puppy,” she said. “Like in our mind, it’s just some stuff from like nature, right?”
Later that night, however, Cross said she woke up to the puppy going downstairs, which was unusual.
“I followed her thinking maybe she just needed out, so I let her out and I could see she was sick. She had thrown up, she was having diarrhea,” she recalled.
At first, Cross said she wasn’t too concerned because she assumed her puppy had just eaten something that disagreed with her. It was until she noticed that Zoe was having trouble walking that she became alarmed.
“She could hardly keep her eyes open and like all this foam and saliva was just dripping out of her mouth,” she said.
At 1:30 a.m., the family rushed Zoe to an emergency veterinary clinic where they were told the puppy had some form of poisoning.
The puppy was given an IV and put on an electrocardiogram (ECG) to monitor her heart because her heart rate was low, Cross said.
Despite their interventions, Zoe’s condition continued to deteriorate and she died of kidney failure later that afternoon.
“They brought her into us and she's hooked up to all these machines and stuff. And then we were in there for like 30 seconds, all of us with her, and then everything was beeping and then the vet said, 'Actually, I’m so sorry, but her heart just stopped,’” Cross said, choking back tears.
Cross said they found out later that Zoe had likely died from blue-green algae poisoning because she had eaten pine cones coated in the bacteria.
“They could see something in her stomach and I guess it was the pine cone, but because the pine cone was so concentrated in this blue-green algae, it was just poisoning her,” she said.
The veterinarian told them that their puppy had every single symptom of blue-green algae poisoning that affects the kidneys, Cross said.
Ian Sandler, a Toronto-based veterinarian who founded Grey Wolf Animal Health and is a member of the national issues committee for the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, said blue-green algae is a cyanobacteria that has been around for many years.
“It really thrives in primarily freshwater, and above 70 or 80 F (25 C),” he said. “The biggest problem, with climate change right now, is that we're seeing more and more blooms, if you will, these algae blooms, especially mid to late summer.”
Sandler said a blue-green algae bloom can appear slimy as it floats on the surface of the water, almost like “somebody has put fluorescent green paint in the water.”
While the bacteria is dangerous if ingested by humans and other animals too, Sandler said dogs are more likely to ingest more of it when they’re swimming or playing near water because they will drink the water and eat different objects.
“They'll eat things that may have algae on it, right? So they’ll pick up a stick, or something that may be floating,” he said.
For dog owners who suspect their pet might have come into contact with the bacteria, the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society has shared a list of signs of blue-green algae toxicity to watch for in dogs.
For Cross, she said the most shocking part for her was how quickly her puppy died after the initial onset of symptoms.
“It happened so fast,” she said. “It was less than 24 hours.”
Sandler said the seriousness of the poisoning can depend on how much bacteria was ingested, the age of the dog, if they were on other medications, or if they had other concurrent illnesses.
“It’s usually very quick. It's not like a delayed onset,” he said.
Cross said she wanted to share her story so that other dog owners will be aware of the potential dangers of blue-green algae.
Sandler said the main thing pet owners can do is to prevent their dog from ingesting the bacteria by keeping them out of fresh bodies of water that appears dirty, foamy or have colour floating on the surface.
“Just absolutely ensure that there they keep them out of the water. There’s no reason for them to be swimming in the algae season,” he said.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.