pig ears and giardia?!

[Kermit]

So I was talking to a vet tech the other day, and she was buying a bunch of pig ears for her dog. Real casual-like she says, "oh by the way you know pig ears can give a dog giardia". And I was like...uhh... then why are you buying them? And she said because if her dog gets it she can get treatment for cheap because she works at a vet clinic!

Anyhow, can you believe it? She said it is so common for a dog to come down with diarrhea and sometimes vomiting if they have eaten a bunch of pig ears... and it's because somehow the pig ears carry that parasite!!! So I thought I'd share that with everyone, or if anyone has experience with that... let's get this out into the open!! I had never heard that before, and I was wondering if anyone else had heard it?
Yucky! Because the thing that is scariest about giardia is... people can get it too!!! Aaagghhh!!! 

[macybean]

I've never heard of that, but giardia is one heck of a mess, though. we had a litter of newborn kittens bring it into our house, pre-dogs. It was a mess, and our cats and the kittens went through two rounds of treatment to get rid of it, not to mention the tests to figure out what it was (they had me worm them twice even though they weren't showing worms; I had to bring in samples of their poop to test later). I can't imagine it being cheap to treat for anyone, but maybe vet techs get pretty good vet perks, eh?

I'd like to know if it's true, though, b/c if so, I think I'll avoid pig ears. I don't want to go through all of that again (and with two big dogs, no less!).

[macybean]

The only thing I found while searching through Google was a link between samonella and pig ears.