pet connection

Hardly a day goes by when there isn’t a news story about a dog attack somewhere. When school starts, children may become especially vulnerable, walking and biking through their neighborhoods to class. That’s why every year we like to remind parents to review safety around strange dogs with their children.

To be fair, dogs aren’t the biggest risk that children face growing up. Organized sports, for example, are 10 times more likely to result in a child’s trip to the emergency room than are dogs.

And although in most cases the dog involved in a serious attack is the family’s own, it’s also true that many neighborhoods are not safe for walking or biking because of a dog.

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• The spreading popularity of topical hormone treatments in people — especially, but not exclusively, among menopausal women — is having unintended medical consequences for pets, according to the Veterinary Information Network News Service. The news service reports that veterinarians have seen both male and female dogs with alarming changes in the appearance of their genitalia, as well as fur loss. The problem is easy to avoid: Use disposable gloves to apply the creams, and confine them to an area of the body that will be under clothing, so that pets are not exposed to the active ingredients.

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