Copper in the Water Can Kill Dogs
Montecito Man Battles with Utilities to Determine Source of Electrical Current in His Water Pipes
Early last year, Trev Broudy’s golden retriever got very sick. He took her to four veterinarians to try to figure out why she had severe anemia and was deathly ill. One suggested he put her down, she was so sick. After his dog dropped from 80 to 60 pounds in a couple of months, Broudy decided to start giving his filtered drinking water to 8-year-old Bacall instead of tap water, and she slowly got better. About six months in, a vet in Tahoe thought it was some kind of poisoning, maybe metal poisoning.
Then Broudy heard from the Montecito Water District in September. The district has sampled his tap water periodically as part of its water quality testing program, but September’s copper reading was 1,530 parts per billion — well above the state’s “action level” of 1,300 ppb at which corrosion had to be controlled. The district couldn’t believe the result was so high and tested Broudy’s water again; the result was the same. They told him not to drink the water. Broudy immediately thought of Bacall.
High levels of copper can irritate the human digestive tract or even cause organ damage. Dogs don’t metabolize copper as well and are considered more susceptible to copper overload.
