Could dog park water be making your dog sick?

HOUSTON – Have you ever wondered what’s in the water your dog is drinking at the dog park?

KPRC Channel 2 News met Bentley, a 16-month-old basset hound whose owner believes their day at the dog park made Bentley very ill. A visit to Bentley’s home in Sugar Land showed just how quickly Bentley’s health has deteriorated.

Bentley’s owner, Denise Pagano, told Channel 2 that just 48 hours after visiting the Pawm Springs dog park in Sugar Land, Bentley began wincing in pain and breathing heavily.

Bentley had consumed water from the dog swimming pool there.

Denise told Channel 2, “They’ve never seen anything like this in a 16-month-old basset hound. The only place they can really pinpoint it is in the water.”

Bentley’s vet, Dr. Rebecca Norton, said she believes the water at the park contributed to Bentley’s illness.

“The stool sample they tested after he got sick contained a certain type of bacteria called spirochetes,” Norton said.

Pagano was given multiple prescriptions for Bentley, but $5,000 later, the dog has not shown much sign of improvement.

Channel 2 Investigates set out to test not only the water in Bentley’s dog park in Sugar Land, but in popular dog parks in and around Houston. We used professional lab gear to test the swimming water in each park and took our samples to a lab for results.

The good news for dog owners who frequent Johnny Steele Park is that their water is virtually pristine, measuring less than 1 colony of E. coli per 100 milliliters. Danny Jackson, Millie Bush and Bill Archer dog parks all had results less than 80 colonies per milliliter. Gene Green Dog Park had a higher level of E. coli, at 521 colonies per milliliter.

Check out the breakdown of the results.

To put this in perspective, a public drinking fountain for humans cannot have greater than 0 colonies of E. coli. Even 1 colony is a big problem. The same goes for the water in your home.

But dogs’ stomachs are different than ours, and while the state regulates human water consumption heavily, there are no such guidelines for dogs.

Click here for a breakdown of what levels of E.coli are acceptable for humans.

So what were the results at Bentley’s park at Pawm Springs? The first time we tested the water, the result was a troubling 2,400 colonies of E. coli per milliliter.

Tanny Busby, the director of the lab to which we brought the samples, told us, “That’s a high number, a number of concern.”

Those high results came from water samples we collected the day after Pawm Springs said they cleaned their water for regular weekly maintenance. We took our findings to Joe Chesser, the director of Sugar Land Parks and Recreation, for comment.

“That is surprising that the very next day you got those numbers, so that’s something we will look into,” Chesser said.

We tested Pawm Springs again and this time the E. coli results were 300 colonies per milliliter-- a big difference from the initial test of 2,400 colonies. How could that be?

Park officials told Channel 2 that several factors can contribute to the fluctuation in E. coli numbers. As a result of our investigation, the Sugar Land Parks and Recreation Department said it will revisit their dog park maintenance procedures.