Chlorine?
 

Our dog loves the water. We have gone through a lot of kiddie pools during the summer months. Now we are thinking of getting something bigger. Like one of those big round metal horse troughs. Could we put some chlorine(small amount) in there to keep it from getting yucky to fast?


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depends on how much chlorine it takes to keep it from getting "yucky". i would ask my vet on this.

What about salt water? I mention this because my cousin has an inground pool (built for the dogs!) and she did it as salt water pool ... but they have it at a really low level ... apparently, it's healthier than chlorine ... and it's supposed to have healing components ... I have no idea ... but you could look into it.

Or others on here might have more info ... good or bad!

We used to have a salt water pool. It has to be a ionizing system that converts the salt. So it really isn't for small do-it-yourself pools. I will talk to my vet. I know a lot of dogs swim in their owners pools


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I don't know how much chlorine will help. If your dog is anything like mine, the water gets mucky from dirt and mud the dog brings in--I think algae would be the least of your troubles.

Without a circulation system you'd just be "shocking" the system and not really preventing algae or other bacterial growth. My family has a salt water in ground pool as well and you can barely feel the salt due to the ionizing thing but I prefer for my dog to swim in that over chlorine. Chlorine dries out skin really quickly. He's swam in a chlorine pool before though and was fine afterwards.

My suggestion would be to find a stream/creek/pond/lake near by and take them there to swim. My boy would swim in Lake Michigan over the summer no matter how big the waves were.