Testing for heavy metals in drinking water collected from Dog

Overview

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Key numbers

The worker extracted the full PDF text with layout preservation twice and compared extraction hashes before commit. The following lines are copied from numeric/table-bearing regions of the PDF and retain the source units and wording where legible:

All water samples were acidified to 2% nitric acid (v/v) and digested for 16 hours before
28 individual metals or minerals, the medians, means, standard deviations, and ranges were
A total of 178 of the 200 (89.0%) sample kits sent were returned by dog owners. In seven
There were at least 16 participants from each of the 10 selected states. The majority (97%)
of dog owners identified as White. Owners ranged in age group from 18–24 to >75, with
of <$60K, and 74% had received at least some amount of higher education. Participants’
home locations were predominantly located in rural (72%) locations, with a minority (28%)
common in rural areas (40). Most (87%) owners reported their dog to be in very good to
excellent health, even though owners of 147/178 dogs (82%) reported their dog as having a
known developed (i.e., non-congenital) health condition of some kind (Table 1).
reported having their well water treated. A majority of people (68%) further installed
some form of water treatment system within their home. Of these, 13% installed health-
chlorination systems. Another 37% installed aesthetic-based systems (e.g., to alter smell/
iron removal. An additional 18% of participants reported having installed both aesthetic- and
Twenty-nine owners (16%) reported an awareness of a potential leaching source (e.g., septic
One hundred seventeen people (66%) reported having plastic water pipes, and another 23
(13%) reported metal pipes within their home. Twenty-seven (15%) did not know their pipe
material. Half of participants (89) reported having “hard” water, compared to 22% (40) who
reported “soft” water, and 21% (36) did not know. Nine people (5%) reported having pipe
from sample to sample, with respect to each metal and mineral (Table 3; S1 Table), and
one instance. Twenty-one elements (75% of those analyzed), including chromium, copper,
above an EPA MCL or guidance level— with 114 dogs’ (64%) samples with at least one
metal being above an EPA MCL or guidance level. There were 13 instances (7% of samples)
(60% of samples) in which sodium was above the EPA health guidance level, ranging
dogs’ water sources and various metals (Table 4). On average, wells installed after 1996 had
(Table 5). They were both below a rate ratio of 1.0, meaning that higher values of these
less likely to have a diagnosed health condition (Table 6).
demographic data alongside dog demographics (Table 1) in an effort to promote this practice
and softening and can increase sodium levels to more than 300 mg/L in drinking water,
sources of heavy metal poisoning. Forte et al. (2023) (50) found detectable concentrations of
1. Denno DM, Keene WE, Hutter CM, Koepsell JK, Patnode M, Flodin-Hursh D, et al. Tri-county
Fig 2. Dog owners reported using a variety of home filtration systems, with just over half (55%)
Table 1. Dog-owner pair demographic information for all participants who returned a water sample kit.
Table 2. Water Source Variables. Detailed information about participant dogs’ drinking water sources as
Table 3. Sample variance of metals tested in dog drinking water samples, per EPA action and guidance
Arsenic <0.010 ppm 2.2% 0.0002 (0.0013 ± 0.0053) 0.066
Cadmium <0.005 ppm 0% 0 (0.000035 ± 0.00021) 0.0027
Chromium <0.1 ppm 0% 0.0007 (0.001 ± 0.0013) 0.013
Selenium <0.050 ppm 0% 0.0003 (0.00088 ± 0.0032) 0.03
Uranium <0.030 ppm 0% 0.0002 (0.0010 ± 0.0035) 0.03
Aluminum <0.05 ppm 22% 0.0064 (0.067 ± 0.22) 2.3
Nickel <0.1 ppm 0.6% 0.001 (0.0062 ± 0.047) 0.63

Methods (brief)

Testing for heavy metals in drinking water collected from Dog
This prompts further investigation with a larger, stratified sample analyzing dogs’ drinking water
of dog health and aging, provide samples of their dogs’ drinking water, which are tested for 28
U.S., metals are detectable in all samples, some above limits set by the Environmental Protection
samples, contamination sources, and health outcomes.
collected from the point of use (POU) of homes dependent on private wells. As treatment
metals in drinking water samples intended for consumption by dogs; 2) to identify potential
related procedures and sample collection involving privately owned dogs were approved by
sampled cohorts, which may involve collecting such data as electronic veterinary medical
derived from blood cells, plasma, and fecal samples. The project began enrollment in 2019
due to anticipated differences in the amounts and types of metals present in water samples
and in order to collect information about transit times for samples returned to us from
kits via mail that included sealed water bottles and instructions for collecting water samples
from their dog’s primary drinking water source (S2 Text). Participants collected samples
hours stagnation (lack of water use) in labeled collection vials, and returned the samples to
All water samples were acidified to 2% nitric acid (v/v) and digested for 16 hours before
analysis for metals concentrations by a Thermo Electron X-Series ICP-MS per Standard
metals and minerals were determined for each water sample, including eight heavy metals

Implications

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Verification notes

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Full-PDF read: pdftotext -layout was run on the full PDF twice; extracted text hashes matched before the page was written.
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Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
b01ec52c	2026-08-04	major	2 sections added
d49e450f	2026-08-03	major	5 sections added; narrative text revised