FOR RELEASE: Aug. 6, 1997
Contact: Roger Segelken
Office: (607) 255-9736
Internet: [email protected]
Compuserve: Larry Bernard 72650,565
http://www.news.cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The "greening" of American backyards -- as more people turn
to composting food scraps -- is turning some dogs a bilious shade of green.
Certain microorganisms and the toxins they produce can sicken or even kill
dogs that get into the wrong compost pile, a Cornell University veterinary
toxicologist is warning.
"We're seeing more and more cases of 'compost poisoning,' where the
fermentation of meat, dairy products and other food in compost piles
produces clostridial toxins that can be very nasty to a dog," said Larry J.
Thompson, D.V.M., Ph.D., a toxicologist in the Cornell University College
of Veterinary Medicine's Diagnostic Laboratory.
Samples sent to the Cornell Diagnostic Laboratory from throughout New York
state and the Northeast give veterinarians an early warning about disease
and toxicological trends in the animal population, and they now have a
renewed concern about "garbage gut."
"Particularly in warm weather, when animals ingest garbage with clostridial
toxins, we see severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, dehydration and sometimes
death if garbage gut is not treated," Thompson said. "As more people
utilize compost for degrading biological materials -- if they're not
judicious about what they put in their compost and how they protect their
compost pile -- dogs and other animal can smell the meat and gain access to
the compost."
Composts can be a microcosm of potentially harmful bacteria to
meat-foraging pets, according to Patrick McDonough, Ph.D., a
microbiologist at the Cornell Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. He pointed
to Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter jejuni, Yersinia enterocolitica,
Staphylococcus aureus and some of the Salmonellae and Bacillus species as
prime suspects.
In any case, meat scraps have no business being in backyard composts, said
Dan Cogan, a compost technology expert at the Cornell Waste Management
Institute.
"It's true that meat can be composted in some of the high-tech, in-vessel
systems that are now in commercial use," Cogan said. "But please don't try
this at home -- for a number of reasons, including the 'attractive
-nuisance' problem with dogs and other animals. Also, if you simply make
sure your pile is enclosed on all sides, dogs won't be able to gain
access."
Most of the compost garbage-gut cases recorded at the Cornell Veterinary
Diagnostic Laboratory involve dogs, Thompson said, hoping to alert pet
owners to hazards in their own backyards and to encourage owners to monitor
the health of dogs that roam the neighborhood. "Dogs are not put off by
smells that offend us humans," he said, "and dogs -- more so than cats --
will eat garbage without hesitation. It takes all kinds of organisms to
make a compost work, but a dog isn't one of them."
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