pet connection

We promised you details about Thursday’s edition of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and here they are. Check your local listings for channel and time.

Our Dr. Marty Becker is a member of Core Team Oz, and on Thursday America’s Veterinarian  and Dr. Oz are sharing information about the diseases your pet has that you can get. They’ll let you know who is most at risk  — the very young or very old, along with the immunosuppressed.

Rather than just talk about the scary stuff that could happen, they’ll offer  preventive solutions that go beyond washing your hands and using a pooper scooper. Did you know that MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) is eight times more likely to occur in homes with cats, and that it can ping-pong back and forth between pets and people? They’ll talk about why that happens. They’ll also provide information about why you shouldn’t let your pet lick you in the mouth (no matter how much fun it is for both of you), why parasite control for the four-footers benefits our health, and skin infections (ringworm anyone?).

And for those of us who forget to do poop patrol at least every other day (we know who we are) Dr. Becker will remind us why that’s important.

Both doctors have a simple solution: Get rid of the risk and keep the pet! We know that the health benefits of having a pet far outweigh the risks.

On Dec. 3, Dr. Becker will be back for another visit to Oz, taping a segment on what to do in a pet health emergency. Pet Connection blogger and Purdue U  vet school emergency and critical care expert Dr. Tony Johnson provided the background to make sure only the latest and greatest information is offered.

We’ll let you know when the next can’t-miss segment will air!

Chicago Now blogger Stephen Markley wrote about why he hates dogs. After reading it, my conclusion is that he doesn’t hate dogs and cats, he just doesn’t like them, and in today’s pet-crazed world, that’s tantamount to the same thing. He lists many reasons he doesn’t like them.

What’s hilarious is that some commenters wrote that the reasons he dislikes pets are the very same reasons they love theirs.

While I feel sorry for Mr. Markely because he is missing out on the incredible experiences I’ve had with pets, it is a perfect reminder to those of us who spend much of our day and dreams thinking about our pets or even earning a living with them that not everyone feels this way. Just as we don’t all love football or Thai food, some people are not animal people, and they never will be. We may think of them as missing some important gene, but they are not genetically defective.

I often mention that the lives of people without pets must be terribly dull and unamusing, and I’m certain that parents of human children feel the same way about a childless person like me.

The other day I was reminded that not everyone loves dogs when a computer technician arrived. He clearly did not like dogs, and Dodger was doing his best to meet and greet, and make the technician fuss over him the way everyone else does. No such luck for my poor bouncing boy, who ended up in the back yard while the technician was here.

That guy was in direct contrast to the furnace guy who walked in and said “Wow, an English setter! I used to breed them!” and gave me “an English setter discount” (it was actually because he took so long to get here, but I loved it nonetheless).

Pet lovers, especially the hard-core among us (and you know who you are), need to be reminded once in a while that not all of our guests, service people or friends like animals. They don’t want a dog jumping on them, a cat shedding on their clothes, nor do they want to hold your gerbil or let your bird poop on their shoulder. Some folks are afraid of animals, and some simply aren’t attracted.

Even within animal lovers, not all of us like all animals. My sister’s horses are beautiful and I love feeding them treats, but after seeing my sister end up in the hospital twice after riding them there is no way I am getting ON one;  she stopped asking years ago if I wanted to ride. I like my bones where they are. Furthermore, while I love Melissa Kaplan’s hilarious photos of her huge iguana Mike, she knows darn well I don’t want to hold him, and I don’t want to touch any snake on the planet.

Feel sorry for those folks who are not animal lovers and about what they’re missing, but respect their wishes. I don’t want anyone to force me to sit down and watch a stupid football game, so I don’t force my pets on anyone. Life is all about variety and preferences; the good news is that I don’t have to spend time with those folks who just aren’t animal people.

Since early this year, there’s been an e-mail floating around about two Labradors named Cookie and Coco who desperately need a home because the family lost their home to foreclosure. It began as “we’ve lost our home and need to move in two weeks” and grew to “we’re moving overseas in two weeks.” It ended with “Please, please forward these pics to all your friends.”

Yes, it’s true, Cookie and Coco needed a home. But they were placed months ago, according to Snopes, and yet the e-mail is still floating around with a frightening frequency, rending hearts wherever it goes with its heartfelt plea.

I received it two weeks ago from a friend…and this morning I received it from a rescue group. I can’t even count how many times I’ve received this post this year.

So let’s remind ourselves, in a day and age when everyone is busy and overburdened with e-mails and texts and phone calls, not to forward anything unless we’re sure it’s true. This kind of blind forwarding just wastes our time, and overall takes away some limited time that should go to pets who still need homes. Let’s help the rescue folks do their job.

“I just saw something on the road that looked bad. We’d better turn around,” said my friend Jennifer. She was driving us home from our Italian class. I hadn’t noticed whatever it was because I wasn’t staring at the road, and it was dark.

She stopped the car in the center of the lane with her headlights on what we were afraid was an animal, and put on her hazard lights. I hopped out to discover it was an orange cat.

Last summer one of Jennifer’s beloved cats, Niblet, was found dead on a street.

There was a lot of blood on the pavement. I nudged him to see if there was a reaction; he was dead but still warm on a cold fall night. I panicked, wondering how I could possibly get this bloody cat out of the middle of the road where he would be run over repeatedly. I went back to the car, which now had a few cars behind it, to see if there was anything I could use to move the cat without actually touching him because that idea made me feel ill. While I was dithering, Jennifer was explaining to the cars behind us that there was a dead animal in the road. A minute later, with no other options and a growing line of traffic behind us, I gently took his back legs and pulled him to the side of the road.

He had no collar, no tags.

We didn’t know what to do. If we called the city to remove him, the owner would never know what happened to him. The shelter doesn’t pick up dead animals. I still don’t know if that was the right decision, but we left him there in the hopes his owner would find him. For me, a pet never showing up again is far worse than not knowing what happened.

I kept thinking about a day over a decade ago when I was driving in a lane adjacent to a grassy center island in which there was a completely still cat, and a woman was running towards him. I will never forget the look on her face. I kept thinking about that woman and the warm cat I pulled to the side of the road, and I trembled. Jennifer and I hugged each other and tried not to cry.

When Jennifer’s cat Niblet was found last summer, he was found by a neighbor who knew Niblet. I don’t remember if he had a collar and tags on. But this cat we found last night had no identification tag. He might have been microchipped, but that wouldn’t have helped in this situation.

Cats lose collars all too easily –  most are meant to break away if pulled too tight to prevent choking. That means that sometimes a collar is lost and not replaced immediately. It’s one of those things we mean to do that can just get lost in the shuffle of a busy life. I’ll get the new collar and tag tomorrow. Oops, forgot it, I’ll get it this weekend. Boy, I meant to get that new tag.

From now on, I’m going to have extra collars around the house, and extra ID tags for all of my pets. You just never know when you’re going to benefit from them, or how.

I’ve always been a rather neurotic hand washer, even before I had non-specific hepatitis not once but twice (once idiopathic, once from a blood transfusion). I hate anything sticky on my hands, and so I wash after eating an apple or something that drips, or after cleaning the kitchen or bathroom. Knitting dries my hands. Sadly, thanks to genetics I also have fairly dry skin.

I am completely predisposed to be the ultimate neurotic hand washer (everyone has to excel at something). Every winter my hands get dry enough from the excessive hand washing to crack and bleed, no matter how many gooey bottles of creams I use.

Imagine my life with pets: I’m a walking advertisement for obsessive compulsive hand washing. But it’s my argument that when you live with pets, you should wash your hands more often than you probably do. I have never once had any health issue that resulted from handling pets or their food, not when I feed raw, pick up poop, clean litter boxes daily, get licked, or take care of cuts and scrapes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends hand washing as a preventive measure for many illnesses, and they emphasize it strongly as a preventive measure for pet owners, mostly after cleaning up feces:

• Washing hands with soap and water after handling rodents or their cages and bedding is the most important thing you can do to reduce the risk of Salmonella transmission.
• To protect yourself from cat-related diseases: Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and running water after touching cat feces (stool).
• Although birds can spread germs to people, illness caused by touching or owning birds is rare. To best protect yourself from getting sick, thoroughly wash your hands with running water and soap after contact with birds or their droppings.
• To best protect yourself from getting sick, thoroughly wash your hands with running water and soap after contact with dogs, dog saliva, or dog feces (stool).
• Although horses can pass diseases to people, you are not likely to get sick from touching or owning them. However, when you do common chores with horses, such as cleaning stalls, grooming them, and picking out their feet, you are probably touching manure without knowing it. To protect yourself from getting sick, you should thoroughly wash your hands with running water and soap after contact with horses or their manure.
• Therefore, people can also get salmonellosis if they do not wash their hands after touching the feces of animals. Reptiles (lizards, snakes, and turtles), baby chicks, and ducklings are especially likely to pass salmonellosis to people. Dogs, cats, birds (including pet birds), horses, and farm animals can also pass Salmonella in their feces.

Worried about the flu pandemic this year? Uncle Sam (CDC) wants you to wash your hands. “Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.”

Since I’m neurotic about washing my hands, I’ve made some changes in hopes of not having my hands get so dry they crack and bleed. The big change is that I switched to hand-made soap because the detergent in commercial soaps dries your hands more (in both bar and liquid), and it definitely helped. I rarely use the drying sanitizer in the kitchen. Just a couple of weeks ago I added a chlorine filter to my shower faucet so that all my skin – not just my hands – won’t get so dry.

If you don’t neurotically wash your hands, I recommend becoming at least semi-neurotic during this season of the pandemic H1N1, as beyond other considerations you can’t care well for your pets when you’re ill. (Calling it swine flu is a misnomer, as H1N1 is a triple-reassortment strain of viruses affecting humans, swine, and birds. Let’s not malign pigs.) That’s common sense for this season in particular, but it’s also always common sense for pet owners. The possibility of zoonotic transmission of diseases is lessened by washing your hands after certain tasks (or in the case of some pets, such as reptiles, after handling the pets themselves). Above and beyond the flu, be smart and protect yourself with good sanitary practices so that you never have to consider rehoming a pet because of a disease you could have prevented. Lather up!