A local veterinarian is concerned about the number of dogs he sees running on the beach and the diseases they could spread to humans.

During a recent public safety meeting, Alex Juhasz told Penticton council that he has been seeing more and more people bringing their dogs onto the beach and that it poses a public health risk.

“From my standpoint as a veterinarian it is a public health risk because they can spread diseases to people inadvertently, for example roundworms and hookworms,” said Juhasz, who owns One Medicine One Health. “These can go into the sand and kids play in the sand and they pick up the eggs or larvae.”

Juhasz said many people are now getting their pets from southern locations, an area where many of these diseases come from, and importing them to Canada.

According to provincial health officials, humans can become infected by roundworms when exposed to the eggs passed only by dogs. Infection occurs when there is ingestion from hand to mouth through such activities as bitting finger nails or inserting recently contaminated objects such as toys into the mouth. Once ingested, the eggs hatch into larvae and burrow into the body tissue of all types. A single egg has the potential of causing blindness or if they larvae travel elsewhere, they can cause inflammation and tissue death.

“I see it increasing,” said Juhasz of the amount of people letting their dogs run loose on the beach. “It would be great to see some public awareness or the bylaw people going through and reminding people it is not a good thing and it is a public health issue.”

Rose Gingras, dog control officer for the city, said there is only one beach, off Lakeshore Drive, that allows dogs and that there are a lot of people breaking the law by letting their dogs onto other areas.

“Definitely there has been trouble with dogs on the beach this year and we are in the process of trying to upgrade the things we have been doing to prevent that, such as signage,” said Gingras. “Generally, the tourists have been quite well behaved and on the whole it is mostly citizens of Penticton breaking these rules. They are typically the ones perpetuating this. For example, a person may be driving along and see a couple of other dogs having a great time in the water and presume they can have their dog there so they follow that example.”

Currently there are eight signs located along Lakeshore stating that no dogs are allowed on the beach, Gingras said she is working with the city to post more signs with a clearer definition of the rules, implement an after-hours solution and possibly look at expanding the current dog beach on Lakeshore.

“Some people we come across say they have been doing this for 10 or 20 years and they are going to continue to do it whether we want them to or not. We also do not have the authority to demand identification from a person so we are hoping to find a solution with the assistance of the RCMP, especially in dealing with the repeat offenders,” said Gingras.

Gingras reminded that dogs are only allowed to walk along the Lakeshore promenade from Labour Day through the May long weekend because once tourist season hits, the sidewalk can be a very busy place and potentially dangerous if a dog is startled or aggressive and in a tight area with so many people walking by.

“There are obviously really good dog owners out there that walk their pets on a leash, they are well-behaved and pick up after them but then there are the others out there who are belligerent with the bylaws and to us. They allow their dogs to run off leash, don’t clean up the mess and those are the people that spoil it for everyone else,” said Gingras.