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Can your pet make you sick?
By Christie Keith
March 26, 2009
There’s no way around it: pets make our lives better and they make them healthier. People with pets have lower blood pressure, lower stress levels, and recover more quickly from illness, inury, heart attack, and surgery.
We don’t always return the favor, either. It’s thanks to humans that dogs like my Borzoi, Kyrie, get colonized by drug resistant bacteria like MRSA and MRSI.
But sometimes, yes, it’s true: your pets can make you sick, too. AOL Health’s Ashley Neglia has the story, and interviewed Pet Connection’s Dr. Marty Becker to help her tell it:
Illnesses that can be transmitted from animals to humans, called zoonotic disease, span the gamut from minor to lethal. While you’re more likely to contract an illness from another person than from your pet, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aware of what you can catch from Fluffy and Fido. “The last thing you want to do is panic,” says Dr. Marty Becker, D.V., co-author of “The Ultimate Dog Lover.” “Diseases are on the rise, but if you get rid of the risk you keep the pet.”
What kind of diseases are we talking about? Food borne pathogens like campylobacter and salmonella, which cause digestive symptoms. A number of parasites that can be spread from animals to humans, including ringworm (usually from cats_ and mycobacterium marinum (from aquarium water). Respiratory infections like psittacosis, also known as “parrot fever.” And of course, the best known zoonotic disease of all, rabies.
Some of the infections are extremely rare, like anthrax and avian influenza. Others are much more common, like leptospirosis or cat scratch disease. How can you protect yourself?
Dr. Becker has some suggestions, along with more information, here.
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My husband did catch campylobacter while working at the Humane Society, but it’s very rare to do something like that. And fortunately our doc recognized it after we said we worked with animals, so after a serious dose of antibiotics, he was fine.
Comment by Georg — March 27, 2009 @ 2:36 am
There’s a little blurb in the new issue of BARK about a study by Dr. Kate Stenske of Kansas State University College of Veterinary Mecidine. It doesn’t give much info about the study itself, but it says she “found that dog owners who sleep with their pets or allow face licking are no more likely than their more reserved peers to harbor strains of E. coli bacteria. In fact, the study suggests that people, especially infrequent hand-washers, may spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria to their dogs.”
So Gina can break out that t-shirt with pride.
Comment by Original Lori — March 27, 2009 @ 5:45 am
I do love my cat, but I’m grossed out when I see other cat or dog owners letting them lick their faces. We just shouldn’t get that intimate with an animal. I’m sorry.
Comment by Conrad Walton — March 27, 2009 @ 5:47 pm