The photo that Kansas veterinarian Lindsay Mitchell posted to Facebook looked so real and disturbing that some who saw it went right to the hoax-busting website Snopes to verify it.

But that didn’t stop the photo from being shared more than 53,000 times since it went up last week.

Mitchell, of Hoisington, Kan., posted a graphic picture of a dog with a mouthful of Asian lady beetles.

Ladybugs aren’t so cute when 30 to 40 of them are stuck to the roof of a dog’s mouth.

“This is the second pup I have seen like this today. If your pet is drooling or foaming at the mouth look for these lady bugs. They cause ulcers on the tongue and mouth and have a very painful bite,” she wrote on the Hoisington Veterinary Hospital Facebook page.

Mitchell told the Great Bend Tribune that cases like that are rare, so unusual that since she’d never seen anything like it she had to research what was happening.

She wanted to warn pet owners because Asian lady beetles — which can emit a stink and yellow secretion when crushed — are swarming Barton County in unusual numbers right now. Ag experts report that the spread of the sugarcane aphid in areas where milo is grown has drawn the Asian beetles, a major predator of the aphids.

The multicolored beetles have been plentiful in Kansas this year, as they have been in recent years, Jeff Whitworth, a Kansas State University entomology professor, told the Tribune.

“I posted the photo not to freak people out, but to provide pet owners with an action to take in case they find one of their pets drooling excessively or with apparent foaming at the mouth,” Mitchell told the newspaper.

“They could avoid a trip to the veterinarian’s office if they check their pet’s mouth, and if they find the beetles, they can simply remove them with their finger or a tongue depressor.

“They aren’t like a tick, so there is no worry that a head or any part of the animal will be left behind to hurt the animal further.”

Bailey, the dog in Mitchell’s photo, was the second one she saw in one day that had beetles stuck in its mouth. The dogs tried to eat the bugs.

“Night before last when he came in to eat, he didn’t eat,” the dog’s owner, Frances Jiriks, told KAKE in Wichita. “He was just lethargic and foaming at the mouth.”

Mitchel said if the beetles had remained stuck in the dog’s mouth much longer they could have caused painful ulcers.

A photo similar to the one that Mitchell posted made the rounds on Facebook last November and scared people so much that the American Veterinary Medical Association reposted the photo on its own Facebook page with reassuring words.

“This is going around on Facebook and causing a bit of panic,” the vet group wrote, “so here’s the real scoop: there are invasive Asian ladybugs that can cause problems, but our ‘regular’ ladybugs DO NOT.”

The AVMA emphasized the Asian beetles are not deadly but can cause irritation if a dog tries to eat them. And, a dog eating one or two is a lot less problematic than eating a handful of them, as seen in the pics, the group said.

And no, they don’t attack pets, the vets said.

“And we’ll say this again,” the vet group wrote. “If you have ANY questions or concerns about your pet’s health, your veterinarian is your best source of information.”

Read more here: [url=franksportalonet.blogsport.com]http://www.franksportalonet.com[/url]

Oh my!


Not nice at all

K9blunt:
Oh my!


Not nice at all

yea....scary....you gat to be careful if you have dogs

Blendoscarz10:



yea....scary....you gat to be careful if you have dogs

I have a dog, and yes I am very careful mostly because of her health.

Very disgusting and irritating picture. The poor dog must have felt so much discomfort but couldn't voice it out.

**goosebumps and cold flashs all over me***