One question comes to mind. Are there no pool enclosure laws where you live?
I just put a pool in this (last) summer and the freakin’ bylaw guys were all over me like a bad smell until I got the thing fenced in. Is this not universal? I mean, if not a dog, it could have been your neighbour’s toddler! :eek:
There aren’t really any “neat” ways to do it, however each day you delay makes things worse. If I were in your shoes, I’d use my rabies pole to grasp the cadaver and then put it into a doubled heavy duty bag.
I have lent out my rabies pole (I am a veterinarian) for a vaguely similar situation. (dead animal in a chimney, in case anyone is curious)
And remember, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger!
However long, don’t forget to multiply by 7.
I get plenty of small animals (not dogs) in my pool. The largest was a rabbit.
I usually use the skimmer net to fish them out and then I quadruple-bag them and put them out for the garbage. As others have said, the animal control folks should at least tell you what to do when you have it bagged up.
Small mice I simply flip out into the street for nature to consume*.
As far as filtering… I pretty much have my filter running 24/7 in the summer anyway, and when you first open the pool, especially one that didn’t have a cover, in the spring, you can expect to have to shock it a few times and perhaps dump ten gallons or so of pure chlorine in it to overcome the general pondwater appearance it achieves without constant loving tender care.
So, if you find an animal in the pool, remove it, and then shock the pool, all should be just dandy the next day.
As a person who’s had a dead mouse in his car AC in the summer, I can officially tell you that those folks almost certainly had a most unpleasant experience.
My freshman year of college, I flew home for Thanksgiving. On the way home from the airport, my mother broke it to me that while I was gone my dog had died. He had disappeared one day in early November and was missing for about a week. Finally my mom had put up some “missing dog” signs in the neighborhood and received a call from a women who lived around the corner. Apparently our dog had climbed up to the deck of their (above-ground) pool, tried to take a drink, slipped into the pool and drowned. Her kids found the dog and they had a funeral for it (he had a license but no ID tags).
So, yeah, thanks for bringing up that painful memory. 
Oh yeah, my dog’s name? “Lucky.” Kind of ironic in retrospect!
If there were much decomposition, the carcass would be floating, due to gas bloat. If you don’t care to find the dog’s family, you can probably bag it and put in in your regular trash. If you are on a route where the truck picks up the can and dumps it in the top, then Bob’s your uncle. You can put any damn thing in those cans, and the truck doesn’t care how much it weighs.
If you do want to try to find the family, a vet or dogcatcher can run a microchip scanner over the neck without opening the bag. Some owners also have a dog tattooed inside the ear or on the bare side of a hind leg. If it’s a greyhound, it will definitely be tattooed.
Having just this morning pulled a dead rat out of one of my kitchen light valences, that burst during the night and had been dripping maggots down onto our kitchen counter all night (I was going to write a TMI thread about it all I can say is…good luck, and don’t wear a shirt with a loose open collar :eek:
Unless they contract some debilitating disease, or slip and permanently injure/maim themselves, or are so traumatized that they can never look at the pool again…
Ahhh, grasshopper. I would still stand by my statement.
Continuously for twelve years.
How long is that in dog years?
Last night I had to fish (ha!) a dead fish from my Dad’s aquarium.
So what, you’re thinking, big deal after these previous posts.
I don’t know how long he was dead, a sibling was there the day before but didn’t notice it, I oh so gently put a slotted spoon under it and lifted … not gentle enough, half its skin started sloughing off and floating around the tank on its own. Ick, Ich, Ich (another ha!)
I agree that if it’s been decomposing for long, it would have been floating at the surface from bloat. I vote you won’t have limbs come off.
Done.
How did you do it?
Give him a chance to wipe up all the vomit.
It takes a truly evil mind to think of something like this. And it also made me laugh really hard.
Pics?
Pics? I want samples!
You’re not “Done” until we get a full report. 
