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HALIFAX - Pat Skeir says a disease found in raccoon urine put her dog through a slow and painful death.

And now she's worried that the provincial Natural Resources Department isn't doing enough to control raccoons that are threatening other pets in her Halifax neighbourhood.

"It was such an awful death for him," Skeir said in a phone interview recently.

"He had so many things wrong. He stopped eating. He just wanted to lay there."

Skeir's six-year-old chocolate cocker spaniel, Benson, got sick in May. The friendly dog with a fondness for chasing squeaky toys down the hall suffered from yellow eyes and gums, an enlarged spleen and liver, and his kidneys were working at just 20 per cent.

Benson's veterinarian first thought it was cancer.

But when Skeir told the vet about the number of raccoons in her neighbourhood, a new batch of tests was ordered up.

Those tests, received after the dog died, showed he had a disease called leptospirosis. It's found in the urine of rats, skunks, raccoons and other animals.

"The area I live in is totally infested with raccoons," Skeir said. "They run along the fences, they're in the garbage ... they're in your yard, they try to dig up ... plants.

"People are feeding them, thinking they're cute."

Cases of leptospirosis are rare in Nova Scotia but more common in other parts of North America.

"Leptospirosis is a parasite," said Halifax veterinarian Eric Carnegy, who runs a clinic. "The most common cause is wildlife urinating and getting into stagnant water, and then a dog coming along and drinking that water."

Although sometimes no symptoms are shown if only a small amount is consumed, at other times the parasite can beat antibiotics and "it can actually go in and affect the liver and kidney," he said.

Carnegy was Benson's doctor. He said Tuesday that the dog died of leptospirosis.

"What we found is that the liver enzymes were right off the scale," he said. "The dog started to go jaundice."

Carnegy normally sees about three or four leptospirosis cases annually, but he said Benson is the first this year. He said vaccinating your dog decreases the risk, but it doesn't cover all strains of the bacteria.

"You have to look at the risk factor of your own dog and decide whether you want to vaccinate or not, or keep the animal on a leash ... so you know what they're getting into," he said.

Skeir called the Department of Natural Resources to tell them about Benson and the plague of raccoons in her neighbourhood. She said the department told her she would have to rent live traps if she wanted to get rid of the raccoons. If she caught one, she would have to take it away and release it herself.

"Why would I do that?" Skeir said. "These are not tame animals. They're not supposed to be here in the numbers that they are."

Julie Towers, the department's wildlife director, said all Natural Resources workers who answer calls "are very knowledgeable" and follow "standard procedure."

"We get calls about raccoons all the time," she said Tuesday. "What a staff person would do is offer advice, depending upon the information that they receive."

Towers said staff members help callers identify whatever may be drawing animals to the area, such as garbage or pet food, and then advise them to remove the attractant in hopes of solving the pest problem without harming them.

"Our first advice always is to try to make it as easy as possible for animals and humans to co-habitat," she said. "If they really want the animal removed, then . . . people have the choice of trapping the animals themselves."

That probably means borrowing or renting a live trap from a private company, Towers said.

But there is another option, she said, and that's hiring a department-licensed nuisance wildlife operator.