Posts in Category: Dogs

Families interested in getting a pet should give careful consideration to the type of animal that best fits their lives, according to Tanya Roberts of the Oregon Humane Society. Roberts lists factors each family should weigh, such as how often the animal will be alone and how active the family is. Parents are encouraged to initially visit shelters without their children to evaluate pets before the whole family visits. Finally, once a pet is taken home, Roberts notes that parents must teach children how to interact properly with pets. The Oregonian (Portland)

Homes with dogs have more bacteria and greater diversity of bacteria than those without dogs, according to a North Carolina State University study, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people living with canine friends face any additional health risks. Most of the bacteria identified were not pathogenic, and they may even have some benefits for humans. “We know we have all these bacteria in our home,” said researcher Holly Menninger. “Let’s learn to live with them.” NBC News/Vitals blog (5/22)

A dog may not only fill a home with joy, it fills a home with a whole lot of bacteria, new research suggests.  But that doesn’t mean you have to kick your pooch out of the bed.

Research from North Carolina State University published Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE found homes with dogs have both a greater number of bacteria and more types of bacteria than homes without dogs.

The findings were part of a larger study that analyzed the types of microbes living in 40 homes in the Raleigh-Durham area of N.C.  Participants swabbed nine areas of their homes and informed researchers about aspects that could influence bacterial life, such as whether there were dogs or cats and how many people lived in the home.

“The project was a first step toward making an atlas of microbes found in the entire home and how they may affect our health and well-being” said Holly Menninger, a co-author and director of public science at NC State’s Your Wild Life program.

Of the places where household bacteria were found, pillowcases and television screens had the most detectable dog-related microbes.

“Some of the microbes we know come from dogs themselves,” said Menninger. “Some of these bacteria come from the outdoor environment, such as dogs bringing bacteria from the soil and into homes.”

The researchers were able to identify a few classes of bacteria linked to dogs, and certain microbial classes that may cause disease in humans, such as gingivitis and pneumonia.  However, genetic testing of the bacteria was not specific enough to determine whether any harmful strains were there.

All those germs tracked in on dirty paws don’t mean dog-free homes are necessarily healthier, though. While the researchers did not identify the specific species of bacteria living in each household, they were able to say that most of the organisms they found are not disease-causing – and may actually provide some benefits.

“We co-exist with bacteria and healthy, small exposures to bacteria do not pose any risk and might, on the other hand, be beneficial, as long as we keep a good hygienic environment,” said Dr. Rani Gereige, director of medical education at Miami Children’s Hospital.  Gereige was not involved in the research.

A recent study found that exposure to a microorganisms from a pet during a child’s first year of life of life may help ramp up the immune system, lowering the risk of developing allergies later.

“Research has actually shown that mothers who live with dogs while pregnant are less likely to have children with conditions like atopic dermatitis or to develop allergies,” said veterinarian Dr. Andy Roark of Greenville, S.C.

Certain bacteria from dogs – such as salmonella and listeria — can cause infections in humans, however, so it is important to be vigilant, he cautions.

“It is always a good idea for both adults and children to wash hands after playing with pets, especially before eating,” said Roark.

The study did not control for certain factors that could affect bacterial growth, such as household climate and cleanliness, and there were not enough homes with cats to accurately analyze the feline contribution to residential bacteria.  The researchers did not analyze whether certain dog breeds harbor more bacteria than others.

The microbes found throughout the different homes fell into three general groups: those that come from skin and live on surfaces we touch, such as door knobs and toilet seats; bacteria linked to food found in kitchens; and organisms found in places where dust gathers, such as television screens and moldings.

Menninger added that the research team is in the process of analyzing samples and other data from a total of 1,300 homes across the United States.

“We know we have all these bacteria in our home,” said Menninger.  “Let’s learn to live with them.”

Just like their human companions, pets are gaining girth, with more than half of dogs and cats tipping the scales, according to a survey of veterinarians by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Yet many owners with obese animals believe their pet’s weight is normal, according to veterinarian Joe Bartges, an internal medicine specialist at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine and association board member. A proper weight loss plan, developed with the help of a veterinarian, includes increased activity and appropriate food intake. The Boston Globe (tiered subscription model)/Daily Dose blog

Rebecca A. Johnson, University of Missouri, USA (Co-Author of “Walk A Hound, Lose A Pound)

ABSTRACT for AVMA Convention, 2013, Human-Animal Bond Track

A large share of the industrialized world is recognizing and struggling to address an epidemic of overweight and obesity which has also extended itself to companion animals. Creative strategies are needed that transcend species and help to facilitate physical activity. The nature of human-animal interaction (HAI) as a key facilitator of physical activity for both ends of the leash will be explored. In particular, what components of HAI and the human animal bond are most likely to facilitate cross-species physical activity, what role dog walking can play when it is incorporated into treatment plans for people and companion animals, and what arethe theoretical and empirical bases for advocating dog walking?

The potential for dog walking as a communities-wide intervention and its applicability across cultures will be discussed. Attention will be paid to clinical implications around dog walking and its potential for advancing One Health practice in a variety of disciplines.  This work grew out of my research on relocation of older adults in which I found that physical limitations were common reasons for them to relocate to a nursing home. In our first study we achieved significant weight loss among participants. Subsequent studies showed that older adults’ normal walking speed increased
significantly after dog-walking and that dog walking was associated with increased physical activity outside of the dog walking. The findings show that HAI can have important implications for health and well-being.

They can be hard to find, but “off-leash dog beaches are a canine’s dream come true,” according to Lisa Porter, owner of the travel site Pet Hotels of America. The best beaches offer amenities for pets such as showers, bags for waste cleanup and the option for off-leash play. Efforts to develop more oceanside spots for dogs have stalled in some areas amid fears of wildlife impacts and mess, but those who support the beaches say they are good for people in addition to pets. Detroit Free Press/The Associated Press (5/22)

By Ron Berler

Appeared originally in Mysterious Ways magazine.

Casey wasn’t the most popular dog in her owner Carol Baird’s neighborhood of Dalton, Ga. A huge, burly Alaskan malamute, she had a heart of gold but a nose for trouble.

She’d slip out the Baird family’s back door and trot down the street without a care. Most people gave her a wide berth. That was hardly surprising. From a distance, Casey looked a lot like a wolf.

She behaved like one too, or at least had an appetite like one. Neighbors often stormed over to complain. “Your dog got out again, and ate all of our dog’s food!” or “Casey’s turned over our garbage!”

So when a man rapped on Carol’s door, said he lived three blocks away and then asked for her dog’s name, Carol braced herself. What did Casey do this time?

“We have a sliding-glass door that we usually keep open in the summer,” the man began, “and every day for the last several weeks your dog has wandered off the street and come uninvited into my house.”

That dog, Carol thought. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why Casey gets herself into such mischief. A lot of it’s our fault. We have to start watching her more closely. But honestly, she means no harm…”

“No, you don’t understand,” the man interrupted. “I came over to thank you.”

The man must have seen the confusion on Carol’s face. No neighbor had ever said anything positive about Casey before. They usually wanted to know who would fill up the two-foot hole she’d energetically dug in their backyard.

But not this neighbor. He explained that his father, who had Alzheimer’s, lived with him and his wife and needed constant monitoring. The father rarely moved from his easy chair in front of the TV in the living room and was often agitated. Caring for him had exhausted the man and his wife.

“I couldn’t remember the last time we had two hours to ourselves,” the man said. “And then, one day, your dog showed up.”

Casey wandered into the house through the sliding door and made straight for the man’s father. “She sat right beside him, like she had planned to visit him all along,” the neighbor said, his voice filled with wonder.

He saw his father turn to Casey and begin to pet her. He stroked her and stroked her, and fell peacefully asleep. “He slept two full hours,” the neighbor said. “It was the biggest midday reprieve my wife and I have had in years.”

Casey returned the next day, and every day after that, as if she had an appointment to keep. Each time was the same. She’d pad to the old man’s chair and sit by his side, letting him pet her till he dozed off.

“To my wife and me,” the neighbor said, “Casey was a gift from heaven. That’s why I’ve come to see you today. Is Casey here?”

“Yes, she is,” Carol said. “Casey!”

The big malamute trotted up, looking at the neighbor with searching eyes. The neighbor gave a gentle pat. “You must have known, didn’t you?” the neighbor said to Casey. “That’s why you just stopped coming a couple of days ago.”

“Known what?” Carol asked.

“My father died in his sleep the night after Casey’s last visit. She knew her job was over.”

Check out Chris and her pet partner Kinsey having a blast paddle boarding!

Pet owners can add “heart health” to the list of reasons they love their animals. According to the American Heart Association, owning a pet is associated with more physical activity, lower blood pressure, better lipid levels and better acute coronary syndrome survival. “Pet ownership is an important nonhuman form of social support and may provide cardioprotective benefits in patients with established” cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA. USA Today (5/9), MedicalDaily.com

Pets don’t just make lives fuller. They may help make them longer, says an official statement from the American Heart Association.

Owning a pet – especially a dog – seems to have heart health benefits, the group says in the statement published Thursday in the medical journal Circulation.

“The data is most robust for people who own a dog,” says Glenn Levine, a cardiologist with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. But he says there’s reason to believe cats and other pets are helpful, too.

Levine led a scientific committee that reviewed the research on pets and heart health. The group says the studies are not definitive but do suggest:

• Dogs may keep owners active (with all those walks). In one study, dog owners were 54% more likely than other adults to get recommended levels of exercise.

• Interacting with a pet can lower stress responses in the body.

• Pet ownership is associated with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels and less obesity.

In one of the best-designed studies, Levine says, researchers compared people with borderline high blood pressure who adopted dogs with others who also wanted dogs but were randomly assigned to delay the adoptions for purposes of the study. Those who brought home their dogs saw declines in blood pressure and were less likely to see their blood pressure and heart rates rise in response to stress. A study with cats and dogs produced similar results in people with high blood pressure and high-stress occupations, he says.

Most other studies involved comparing pet owners with those who did not have pets, meaning researchers could not rule out the possibility that people who had pets were just healthier to start with.

In any case, the experts don’t recommend that people with heart health problems adopt, rescue or buy pets just for the potential heart health boost.

The main reason to get a pet should be “to give the pet a loving home” and enjoy the relationship, Levine says.

“We also not do not want someone to go out and buy a dog and then be content to sit on the couch and smoke.”

Ticks carry diseases that affect humans and canines, but dogs fare better when it comes to detection and prevention. A rapid blood test identifies Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis in dogs. Vaccines are also available to help protect dogs from Lyme disease, while tick-protection products help keep ticks from biting in the first place. Parasitologist and veterinarian Michael Dryden urges owners to have at-risk dogs vaccinated and emphasizes the importance of choosing the right tick-prevention product. ChicagoNow.com/Steve Dale’s Pet World blog (5/14)

Where there are ticks, there’s bound to be tick disease. According to veterinary parasitologist Dr. Michael Dryden, the tick population in America has exploded in recent years. Curiously, dogs enjoy more benefits than people when it comes to identifying tick disease, as well as protection to prevent disease transmission in the first place. For people, there’s no accurate test to determine tick-borne disease. For dogs, however, an inexpensive blood test can identify three tick diseases (Lyme, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis), plus heartworm disease.

“Tick disease is sometimes there without a pet showing clinical signs,” says Dryden. “It’s important to know if a dog’s been exposed. Very often, the general signs (of tick disease) can show up later, and they’re often mistaken for other conditions.”

For example, one symptom of Lyme disease may be lameness. It’s not unusual for dogs, especially older individuals, to simply be given pain relief for what’s assumed to be arthritis.

For people, there are steps to avoid ticks, but in dogs there are many choices for tick protection. “Protection is key,” says Dryden, University Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Parasitology in the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at Kansas State University, Manhattan. Unfortunately, not all products work well.

“Sometimes consumers make impulsive purchases which may not be the most informed choices,” says Dryden. “Not all over-the-counter products are truly all that protective. It’s important that the product you choose is appropriate for the lifestyle of your pets, as well as where you live. By choosing the wrong product, not only may people waste money, but the pet may then be at increased risk for potential tick disease, which can debilitate the pet and cost money to treat. This is why veterinary advice on what product to purchase is so important.”

Lyme disease is a particular risk for people. Using death records collected from 45 states, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that between 1999 and 2003, there were 114 records listing Lyme disease as a cause of death. Lyme may also trigger a lifetime of chronic, debilitating illness, and weaken the immune system, allowing other diseases to take hold.  So, while the official cause of death may not be listed as Lyme disease – truly it was Lyme that allows for perhaps thousands of untimely deaths to occur annually in people in the U.S.

In dogs, Lyme rarely causes death, but like all tick-borne diseases it’s likely under-diagnosed, and may cause a lifetime of chronic problems.

Making matters worse for both people and dogs, ticks sometimes inflict a cocktail of nasty pathogens, including Lyme disease, all at once.

At least for Lyme disease, dogs have still another layer of protection not yet unavailable for humans. “The Lyme vaccines for dogs are both safe and effective, and should strongly be considered if you live where Lyme disease occurs,” Dryden advises.

Is there truly more tick-related disease today than, say, a decade ago, or have veterinarians simply become better at discovery and diagnosis? “Now, there’s a good question,” says Dryden. “There’s no doubt that the new testing for tick disease is helpful. But ticks are flourishing.”

So, why are there so many? “Look at this year’s weather,” says Dryden. “Throughout most of the nation, it was wet. Much of the country experienced record rain. Now, it’s warming up, and all after a relatively mild winter. We’ll see ticks from about now to well into the fall and even into early winter.”

Weather isn’t the only factor. Wildlife numbers are rising. Animals like deer and fox carry ticks from more wooded places right into our backyards, even in many urban areas.

Learn more about tick protection here.

 ©Steve Dale, Tribune Media Services

Cicadas do not pose a major health risk for pets, according to experts including veterinarian Padma Yadlapalli, who says pets will likely spit out any cicada they try to eat. If ingested, gastrointestinal upset or possibly blockage could occur, so veterinarians advise discouraging ingestion. However, there is no danger of disease: “While they might be a nuisance, they don’t sting, they don’t bite, and they don’t carry disease,” says veterinarian Shelly Rubin. The Baltimore Sun (5/15), DogChannel.com (5/15)

As these red-eyed screechy little bugs begin emerging from the ground, concern among pet parents rises as well. This brood is different from the one we saw in 2004 and its appearance in this state will be limited to parts of Southern Maryland, which is good news. There are several thing pet owners should keep in mind during cicada season:

1.They are not toxic to pets. Most of the time, they are more of a nuisance than a health hazard.

2.Your pet might be interested in trying to eat one, but most likely would spit it back out right away. Cicadas might cause upset like vomiting or diarrhea if eaten, but this would be temporary and respond to conservative treatment.

3.Rarely, if your pet decides to overindulge and eat them like chocolate, they could technically cause an obstruction because your pet would not be able to digest them. But most likely they will just pass on and be seen in the stool.

4.Cicadas cannot transmit any diseases.

5.They do not bite or cause any skin irritation or other dermatological issues

The bright side of all of this is that cicadas are beneficial to the environment because they aerate the soil as they emerge. Our guests are only here for a short stay!

This week’s expert is Dr. Padma Yadlapalli with Freetown Animal Hospital in Columbia. Send your questions to sun.unleashed@gmail.com.