Blind Frog? Possible water problem?

Mr.Blue

Hi,

I have a decent sized, modern style pond (metal) in my garden. It's fairly mature (at least four years old) and it usually gets at least a couple of frogs visiting during the summer. There had been just one frog in there until just recently when I noticed a newcomer had turned up. The first one is quite big and to me looks very healthy (even after getting himself trapped down the side of the pond for a couple of days, before I noticed and intervened of course). This new frog however seems like it may be blind in one eye. I suspect this as (as best I can see) the pupil of his left eye is white or gray in color. His right eye looks normal.

Now I'm quite concerned about what may have caused this to happen. I know it might just be natural and of course it's likely the frog had this injury/defect before arriving in the pond, but do you think some imbalance/pollution of the pond water could have caused it? I wouldn't want the pond frogless!

I have always been carefuly not to put anything in the pond that would even have a chance of causing damage to the water. However there's one possibility. I know it sounds ridiculous, but rcently a friend of mine stepped in some dog dirt in the garden and proceeded to attempt to clean his shoe in the pond. I caught him at it before he would have had it in the water for too long but can't help but think it could have had an effect. Do you think it's even possible for such a small amount of dog waste to have any effect on a medium/large sized pond and harm the pond life? That's just one possibility I can think of, aside from the frogs blindness being a natural occurrance of course.

I'd appreciate your feedback on this. Thanks.

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While parasites that can live in dog dirt, if the dog hasn't been wormed, can cause blindness in humans. (Its called Toxicariasis.) It is not transferable to Frogs or through water. I'd say it's just a Frog with a bad eye.