Grains of Rice

Grains of Rice Category: Pets and Animals

A post just reminded me of a story. In the post, the person said that they found what appeared to be grains of rice in the fur surrounding the anus of the dog. A sure sign of tapeworms.
Years ago, we were babysitting a neighbor's dog in addition to having our own. One day I went out to the yard to investigate and saw what looked like bird seed in the stools. Then it hit me - grains of rice... they must have worms! Or at least one of them did. And if one of them did, then I'd need to worm both of them to ensure that nothing was passed back and forth. So off to the vet we went with doses for both dogs. Time passed and both were doing very well - no more rice in the stools. And I was keeping a close eye - no one would suffer a bit of care while under my watch!! A week later, more grains of rice, so another dose of wormer was given. Again, it all cleared up.

Finally the boarder went home and I filled in his parents on what we had done because at this point we still didn't know whose stools had the problem. All was fine in the yard for about another month. Then one day I'm cleaning and I look out the door and there is my springer spaniel, raiding the pile of bird seed that I had set out. And the next day... rice in the stool. All that time it really had been bird seed!! And my dog sent me on a wild goose chase!