Is it okay for Dog to drink pool water?

[west1745]

Here are the pix!

[pinkivory_99]

We have noticed the 2 outside dogs that we had several years ago would drink the pool water, never had fleas but the inside dog that would go outside to only take care of her business (she is somewhat spoiled) had flea problems. Don't know if the chlorine has anything to do with it but will let the now 2 inside dogs out in the back yard to drink the pool water. Will see if this experment works.

[chem geek]

We have noticed the 2 outside dogs that we had several years ago would drink the pool water, never had fleas but the inside dog that would go outside to only take care of her business (she is somewhat spoiled) had flea problems. Don't know if the chlorine has anything to do with it but will let the now 2 inside dogs out in the back yard to drink the pool water. Will see if this experment works.

I can see how a dog getting all wet from pool water could end up killing the fleas or having them jump off the dog, but I'm not so sure how drinking the water would help. Maybe just getting the nose wet with the chlorine is enough to discourage the fleas.

At any rate, as was pointed out elsewhere, the chlorine levels normally found in pools aren't a serious health problem. When most municipalities switched from chlorine to monochloramine for drinking water disinfection, this was to reduce disinfection byproducts (DBPs especially trihalomethanes -- THMs) and these are minimal in pool water due to the conditioner (cyanuric acid -- CYA) that is used which effectively lowers the amount of active chlorine (and the production of DBPs) significantly.

On the other hand, the CYA in the pool is probably the only possibly "barely" toxic substance in sufficient quantity that is in the pool, at least for drinking. Even so, the toxicity rates are of the order of 3000 mg/kg so that would mean a pool with 50 ppm CYA would be toxic if one were to drink 60 liters per kilogram of body weight. If you believe OxyChem then Cyanuric Acid is not toxic at all.

Personally, I would be more concerned about the fact that drinking pool water is somewhat like drinking bath water (after taking a bath). It's probably too gross (though still somewhat safe) for us humans to drink, but to a dog it's not only just water, it's probably quite safe.

Richard