‘Good Morning America’: Dr. Becker on pets and disease
By Gina Spadafori
June 26, 2008
Common sense, cleanliness and a few preventive-care health measures for your pet. That’s really all it takes to remove most of the risk of catching anything from your pet. As we mentioned earlier, our Dr. Becker is on ABC-TV’s ‘Good Morning America’ this morning, talking about how to protect yourself:
Many owners consider their household pets family members, but just like their human counterparts, these animals can spread illnesses to people.
Pet-to-human transmission is called zoonosis, and highly publicized examples include disease that’s passed from nonhousehold animals to humans, such as mad cow disease and bird flu.
Here’s the rest, and we’ll link up to the video later if it’s posted. And don’t forget Mikkel’s post on what it’s like backstage.
In other veterinary-related news, Time has an interesting piece on stem-cell therapy. From Time:
Blue had hip dysplasia, a fairly common and sometimes crippling degenerative condition in dogs and cats. The cure — a complete hip transplant — would keep Blue in recovery for up to six months. So while Waters mulled the surgery, Blue’s regular veterinarian sent Waters to see another local vet, Kathy Mitchener, who was trained in acupuncture, to treat Blue’s pain.
But Mitchener had a better idea. She offered a cutting-edge stem-cell transplant, a therapy not yet available to humans, that would potentially help Blue’s hip repair itself. The treatment took just two days last January. Mitchener had recently become certified to perform the stem-cell treatment, pioneered by the company Vet-Stem based in San Diego. She removed some fatty tissue from the dog’s abdomen and shipped the sample to Vet-Stem’s labs, where technicians used centrifuges to extract stem cells from the tissue. The cells were shipped back the next day, and Mitchener injected them into Blue’s failing hip, where they adapted and developed into the healthy cartilage and tendon cells the animal needed. Within 36 hours, Waters says, “Blue was moving well, and you could see an ease in her gait.”
Unrelated: Sandy Robins writes about the high cost of moving a pet by air. Woody has flown twice in the last year, and Otter, the puppy I raised for a friend, flew here from Texas and back to Texas four months later. And finally, Ilario came here on a short hop from Oregon a couple months ago.
I can vouch for the price hit of air travel. While Otter’s trips were unaccompanied, Woody flew with me going out and with my friend Mary coming back. Woody’s ride in cargo was considerably more expensive than the ticket for the two-legged half of the travel team, both times. Between the worry and the cost, I’ll be loathe to ship an animal for any reason but the most urgent, that’s for sure.
In other words, Air Woody will be limited to the altitude he can gain on his own. Actually, given the state of air travel, I’m not exactly looking to fly much myself. (Pictured: Air Woody)
I totally agree. My Louis was shipped in cargo from his breeder - I was a wreck. Since then, they fly up above with me in a Sherpa. Its still expensive and a pain though!
Comment by Hilary — June 26, 2008 @ 7:10 am
I got up early this morning just to watch it! Good stuff!
Comment by saintlover — June 26, 2008 @ 9:43 am
What a coincidence that BOTH topics would come up in a single blog! On dirty dogs, Scout is all white but often with all the rains and mud and the creek right by the farm house often looks something closer to the dog in this picture… If this dog had been white it could easily be him launching himself into the water!
Every time he does that now he stinks like a swamp because the water has been standing around in warm weather for a couple weeks and is only starting to recede. So at the very least he gets hosed off before we get back into the truck to go home. Most often I have to give him a bath when we get home and usually I have to do it right away or I get too tired.
He acts like Im taking him off to the death house too. All I have to do is turn the water on in the tub and he gets this hang dog look on his face. Sometimes he looks real depressed and wont move. He lets his body go limp so I cant pick him up either. Other times he accepts the inevitable and trudges toward the bathroom with head and tail hanging low in his “dead dog walking” mode.
I have to make him lay down to soak all the cooties off of him. If I dont give him a bath he gets bug bites all over him (or at least what I think are bug bites) - little weepy bumps that he scratches a lot. He also gets ticks (which we never had before in this part of the state) but he is on Frontline and they seem to die after biting. But the bath also seems to prevent even that.
Also, he has taken to coming and sleeping at my feet but first he comes and nuzzles me. Nothing like a stinking swamp dog coming and rubbing his smelly ears in your face. Uhg…
I dont know what his problem is with baths. Isnt that water too? Geez. Even the hosings and nice and gentle and you would think I was giving him the New Jersey rubber hose treatment!
Here’s the other part. Tomorrow Scout and I are getting a new pal! His name is Trigger and is also an English setter but with one black ear. Trigger had been found as a stray with a bullet wound near Linton IN back in April and the good folks there nursed him back to health. (see his page on petfinder.com - the spam filter catches it when I try to post it here)
Originally they said they could ship him to me but that it would cost around $300. High gas or no, I can go get him for much less. So much for mass transit.
But the good folks at IL Bird dog rescue came to our rescue and are going to ferry him as far as the IN/IL border tomorrow. I am picking him up there and we are going to have an interesting weekend getting to know one another!
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — June 26, 2008 @ 10:41 am