Tap water for thirsty Corgis

[Michael Romanos]

Tap drinking water in the USA could be dangerous, damaging for Corgis.

Recent testings of water supplying 41 million Americans showed up the residue of drugs including nonpresciption and prescription drugs such as tylenol, ibuprofen, sex hormones, antibiotics, antidepressants. 25 of the 28 water sources tested showed up drug residue.

It seems the drug residue is far from healthy for dogs if not in the short term at least in the long term. Further tests are necessary.

What can one do? Filter your water. Filtered water is not perfect either but it is the best option at this moment.

[colbycorgi]

Colby is a bit of a water snob and he drinks Poland Springs, from the bottle!!!

[Louwants]

We have a water filter that the dogs get their water from. Although, Duncan prefers to hang over the bathtub and lap the water from the faucet. Another little thing my husband thought was cute when Duncan was a puppy. He would lean over and bite at the water as my husband would be getting ready for a shower. Needless to say, he thinks that is how he should get a drink of water most of the time.

[MyPemCharlie]

The US has some of the best and safest tap water quality standards in the world. Documents noting chemical types and levels from water suppliers must be made public at minimum annually as required by the EPA. Here in Austin, a water quality report is published on the internet monthly, and we enjoy very good quality tap water.

Bottled water is regulated by the FDA, but if the water is sold in the same state as it is bottled, has virtually no regulation. About a year ago, I heard news reports stating that bottled water can have many more polutants and chemicals than most cities' unfiltered kitchen tap water. I found out that most bottled water sold in my city is actually just bottled San Antonio or Houston tap water (no additional purification or treatment). Needless to say, I quit buying bottled water for $1/bottle and went back to the tap for pennies.

For people concerned about their local water quality, I would agree that home filtering of tap water is probably the best option (for US residents).

[MyPemCharlie]

Since Michael didn't post a link his statement on pharmaceuticals in water, I did a quick search. Here is the link:

AP probe finds drugs in drinking water - Yahoo! News

Apparently the EPA does not currently require testing for pharmaceutical residue. The article does state that drug concentrations found are "tiny" in parts per billion.

Twenty-eight major metropolitan areas were tested. Members here may want to scroll through the article to see if their city is on the list and what drugs were found.

Only three of 28 areas were clear with zero pharmaceuticals. "Of the 28 major metropolitan areas where tests were performed on drinking water supplies, only Albuquerque; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Va.; said tests were negative."

[Corgis4me]

There are different types of water filtering options. On one of the early Morning news shows I was listening to it said that you would have to get a Reverse Osmosis water filtering system for getting rid of drug contaminants - I wish I would have paid a bit more attention to the entire interview, but I saw on a site where their starting price was around $350

[MyPemCharlie]

Yes that's an interesting point on the filtering. The AP article notes that home filtering systems are not rated to remove pharmaceuticals, and bottled water would not be cleared of drugs. Reverse osmosis is noted as removing drugs, but is cost prohibitive on a large scale and produces many gallons of "waste water" to produce one gallon of purified water.

[Peggy]

This has been all over the news in the US for a couple of days now.

And from what I've heard, you'd have to drink an Olympic sized swimming pool's worth of water to have an adverse effect on you. That's for a human of course. A dog would need a little less.

However, still a dog or cat would have to drink a lot. What's been found is equivelent to an eye dropper full of the medications in that Olympic sized pool of water.

So IMO, it's good it made the news, but nothing to panic about yet.

CTV.ca | Pharmaceuticals found in four cities' tap water

Peggy

[Louwants]

They have to drink that much? DARN! I was hoping to find some water that had Prozac in it for Duncan....LOL!

[Peggy]

Originally Posted by Louwants

They have to drink that much? DARN! I was hoping to find some water that had Prozac in it for Duncan....LOL!

LOL! That's a good one. Sorry guess he'll have to drink a lot. Or you need to find some that's more contaminated (with what you want) than the normal water.

Peggy

[Michael Romanos]

Dogs are different to us in the sense of their body weight and internal distribution processes, so what might not ever affect us to any great degree (though chances of living extremely long lives and in full quality of life are greatly reduced), will affect a dog much more severely. So the residues of 'poisons' and unhealthy drugs etc in some tap water may be minimal for us but not minimal for dogs - and the smaller body mass the dog, the worse off he/she is. Chocolate is a case in point. Chocolate is toxic to both humans and dogs. A large block of chocolate consumed as a meal by a medium size dog could kill the dog but it would take perhaps 20 times as much for an adult human to be rendered the same.
And of course, most water supplies have chemicals added such as clorine and fluoride.

The tap water quality in the Wellington region where I live is in the top ranked bracket in the world but that probably won't prevent some unwanted residue from being present. A 15 minute drive from my house will get me to free public water taps which draw out cold pure water. Taylor is also lucky that we have a little stream running through my property with the source of the stream is a forest/bush reserve just up the road.

[Peggy]

Originally Posted by Michael Romanos

Dogs are different to us in the sense of their body weight and internal distribution processes, so what might not ever affect us to any great degree (though chances of living extremely long lives and in full quality of life are greatly reduced), will affect a dog much more severely. So the residues of 'poisons' and unhealthy drugs etc in some tap water may be minimal for us but not minimal for dogs - and the smaller body mass the dog, the worse off he/she is. Chocolate is a case in point. Chocolate is toxic to both humans and dogs. A large block of chocolate consumed as a meal by a medium size dog could kill the dog but it would take perhaps 20 times as much for an adult human to be rendered the same.

Some of the drugs mentioned are used in dogs, and some times at a comparable dose. Amoxcillin for instance is used in dogs and their dose is not much less than you'd use in humans. So it depends on the drugs and how much is in the water.

And I did say it would take less water for a dog to be affected.

The news reports here also pointed out that it can be found in aqufers and in ground water, so you can't really say any source is totally safe.

Also, most filters don't remove drugs, and many communities don't test for many of them.

Bottled water isn't any safer than tap water. You just have to find the best source for you and move on. No use worrying excessivly for something you can't do anything about.

Peggy