Pet Pause: Blastomycosis - WAOW - Newsline 9, Wausau News,
Weather, Sports  Pet Pause: Blastomycosis   PET PAUSE (WAOW) --
There is a little known disease that affects both dogs and
humans.. called Blastomycosis.  While it's very rare, isn't very
important to watch out for.  Dolores Glytas answers some
questions about it.   A. Blastomycosis is a fungal organism that
lives in sandy, acidic soil in close proximity to water.
Conditions need to be perfect for it to survive and for the most
part is found in small pockets instead of being widespread. The
proximity to water appears to be very important. A study in
Wisconsin showed that 95% of infected dogs lived within 400
yards of a body of water. This is a serious systemic fungal
disease which can create a variety of respiratory, eye and skin
lesions.   A. The dog inhales the spores from the soil. These
travel down to the lungs which thereby become infected. From the
lungs it can infect other sites such as eyes, skin, bones, lymph
nodes and brain.   A. Some sympto