Beware if you walk your dog around any local creeks, especially those that feed into the Chesapeake Bay.
The Capital Gazette in Annapolis is reporting a number of dog deaths thought to be a result of ingesting toxic mussels. And one dog didn’t even eat the mussels themselves, but just ate ice from the creek and chewed on a stick that was covered in the mussels.
Read more: ‘Quite a mystery’: Biologists investigating local dog deaths
Two Dog Tales 
My educated guess is that the mussels are not inherently toxic but that they are feeding on algae that, when concentrated, can be toxic. Blue green algae (cyanobacteria) are known to produce noxious compounds that taste and smell bad and in high enough concentration can kill a dog or cat that drinks the water. My suspicion is that the mussel shave been feeding on cyanobacteria and have become toxic. Cyanobacteria are generally a problem where the water body contains excessive amount of nitrogen.
By: Dan Marelli on January 12, 2015
at 12:33 pm