The other day I went into our small pond to get it back into shape after the
winter, arrange our 2 water lilies and 1 annual plant, clean it out, etc. I
believe it is about 500 gallons, pretty small. We live on Long Island in New
York. We don't have any fish, and really don't want any. There is a small
waterfall, but for most of the time we have the pump off.

I was wearing rubber boots (almost, but not quite as high as the water
level) as there was a lot of crap on the bottom and I didn't want to step on
it. When I got out of the pond about 15-20 minutes later, I had three small
(1-2 inches long) reddish worms attached to my boot by their mouths. Two
took a little effort to pry loose, but one had actually imbedded its teeth
or sucker or whatever into the rubber and was well affixed to it. That was
frightening! Are these blood sucking leeches or some similar creature? What
can I do to get rid of them? I have two dogs who have the run of the yard,
and I certainly don't want to poison the water in any way in case they sip
from it unsupervised. Could they have attached themselves to my leg? Thanks
in advance for any tips on what I found, or what found me in the pond. Alan