Zoonotic Diseases:
Diseases Humans can get from Pets:
Luckily this is not a big problem in the United States, partly because of rigorous elimination and vaccination programs over the last century, especially in our food animals, and partly because of our temperate climate which means a limited number of parasites and insect transmitters.
Also take a moment to appreciate what we so often take for granted; clean water and good control of our wastes.
There are three other reasons that the spread of disease from pets to humans is minimal in prosperous countries like the U.S. : We vaccinate our pets. We minimize the parasites on our pets through regular deworming and control of fleas and ticks. And we feed our pets high quality diets as opposed to some countries where pets have to scavenge through dumps, garbage, and animal corpses for their daily meals.
I mention this partly to stimulate you to do your part; go to the effort and expense to keep your pet well vaccinated, dewormed, and parasite free.
Help minimize the stray pet problem by neutering and spaying all pets that you don't want to breed on purpose.
And please donate money to your local shelters so they can keep their programs operating.
One more comment before listing and describing some of the diseases that you could conceivably get from pets.
It's natural when reading such lists to think "Oh my God, I'm never touching a pet again!"
Remember that these problems are rare, are easily prevented in most cases, and to say something nice about our government for a change, most of the diseases we need to worry about are well controlled and in many cases nearly eliminated by our vigilant government agencies, many of which are staffed with veterinarians.
Another way to put this in perspective is to imagine that I listed and described all the terrible things that might happen to you from having sex, or kissing, or eating in a public place.
Would you think "Oh my God, I'm never kissing, eating or having sex in a public place again?" Ha. Please don't read too much into my analogy or accuse me of encouraging sex, God Forbid, I'm just trying to lighten things up a little.
I've listed the diseases you can get from pets below and on your left.
Rabies: Everyone knows, of course, that rabies is a deadly disease that you get from being bitten by any warm blooded animal carrying the disease.
What you need to know is pretty basic: Keep your pets vaccinated; the vaccines are very successful and are legally required in the United States.
Another thing to know is that if you are bitten by a pet; first wash out the bite wound well (the rabies virus is killed by most antiseptics) , and if you're not sure if the animal that bit you has a current rabies vaccination, call a physician.
And most of all, be careful in handling wild animals...the biggest carriers of rabies are foxes, coons, skunks, woodchucks, squirrels, feral cats, and bats.
This advice is especially important to all of you kind hearted people that rescue injured and sick wild animals and try to catch wild cats. Be Careful Out There.
For really in depth information on rabies as well as most other zoonotic and contagious diseases, visit the great web site of the Center for Disease Control at www.CDC.gov
Heartworms:
Heartworm and other rarer forms of microfilaria can infect humans.
This is not common.
The parasite is spread by mosquitoes and while most of us have immune systems that successfully fight off the disease, the disease is sometimes the winner.
Immune suppressed people, especially aids and other cancer patients are most susceptible.
The organism is apparently mutating and adapting to other species...we are finding the disease in cats and now in people.
Visit our interesting pages of letters and articles on our No Kill Shelter Site. Includes "Pets in the White House",
and The "Cat Man" Story,
Visit our web site all about our No Kill Pet Shelter
This whole web site was written partly to share my joy and love for my job of caring for sick and injured pets, and partly to promote pet owner responsibility. But I was also hoping to raise money for our no-kill shelter. Here's how you can help:
1. If you shop at Bi-Lo, we're registered there as an official 501c, tax deductible charity. If you'll print out the bar code below and take it to Bi-Lo groceries and ask them to scan it the next time you shop: everytime you use your Bi-Lo Bonus card, we get 1% of your purchase ... the amount Bi-Lo donates to charites.
new card to scan coming soon... (we have to update this card every year)
2. Visit our Ebay Store where we sell all the interesting stuff that people donate to our shelter. This includes pet clothes had made by our supporters, Custom painted T shirts, Craft items, and lots of yard sale items. Click here to link to our EBay store site
3. And of course, we'd greatly appreciate a straight donation. Our staff is 100% volunteer and we do a great job of finding homes for 200-300 pets a year that would otherwise be euthanized. With a little more money we could care for another 100 pets a year.
Please check out our shelter web site at ARF-SC.org
