Camping with canines - tick tick not!
The warm weather is just about here, and that means the start of camping season. Lots of people love to spend time in the great outdoors during the summer, whether it’s at a summer cottage on the lake, trailer camping in a park with electricity and running water, or roughing it in a tent in the peace and solitude of a more remote wooded location. And many people bring along their faithful companions – their dogs – who enjoy the experience just as much, if not more, than we do.
But there are also dangers lurking in the forests – microscopic dangers carried by tiny insects and other bugs. Ticks in particular are problematic. Certain ticks can carry a number of diseases that can make dogs sick, including Lyme disease (caused by Borrelia burgdorferi) and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF)(caused by Rickettsia rickettsii ). Both Lyme disease and RMSF are more common in certain areas where the tick species that carry them are present. You can NOT catch these diseases from your dog, but both you and your dog can be infected by the ticks that carry them. People can also be exposed to these pathogens by accidentally crushing an infected tick while trying to remove it from their dog. Ticks must be removed very carefully to ensure that the entire tick is removed, including the head and mouth pieces, without crushing it. If you're not sure how, contact your veterinarian. Also, the sooner the tick is removed, the less likely it is to transmit certain diseases, so be sure to check your dog thoroughly for ticks when you come back from a walk in the bush.
The Minnesota Department of Health recently reported that the number of cases of (human) Lyme disease increased in that state in 2007. This could be because of spreading tick populations, more people participating in activities in tick-inhabited areas, or increasing awareness and diagnosis of the disease by physicians.
If you and your canine companion will be spending time in some of the wilder and woodier parts of the great outdoors, talk to your veterinarian about what you can do to protect your dog. There are vaccines available for Lyme disease and the bacterial infection leptospirosis (which is also transmissible to people). Flea and tick preventatives are also very important, and many of today’s products are very effective. People should always wear insect repellent when camping or hiking in the woods. Visit the Health Canada website for safety tips on using personal insect repellents. All dogs should be vaccinated for rabies, whether they go camping in the backwoods or they’re house-bound city-slickers.
Rabies from a bat: tragic and preventable
A recent issue of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report described a case of rabies in a person from Minnesota. This person died of rabies in 2007. Approximately one month before he became ill, he held a bat in his hands and felt a ‘pin-prick’. He didn’t see a wound or blood and assumed that he had not been bitten. Since neither he nor his family knew that this type of contact was actually considered rabies exposure, he did not seek medical attention. He died approximately 3 weeks after he developed rabies. Post-exposure rabies treatment would have almost certainly prevented his death. 
- Never handle a bat
- Assume all bats are rabid until proven otherwise
- Any contact with a bat is considered to be rabies exposure unless the bat has been tested and shown to be negative. All bat exposures should be reported to the appropriate public health authorities.
- Despite all the old stories, rabies exposure treatment is not horrible…it’s just a series of shots in the arm.
- Vaccinate your pets. You never know when they’ll encounter a bat…inside or out.
More information on rabies is available in our Resources area.
Horses and MRSA
Many people in the horse world have heard the hype about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in horses. MRSA can cause infection in horses, just like it can in people, dogs, cats and many other animals. It’s usually what we call an “opportunistic” pathogen, meaning it usually takes advantage of a person or an animal that is already sick or injured, like someone who’s in the hospital and has just had surgery. And because MRSA is resistant to many different antibiotics, the infection can be difficult to treat. The big concern with MRSA in recent years is that infections are now sometimes occurring in people who aren’t sick, and who don’t have wounds or incisions, which is where MRSA usually likes to move in. It’s very important to find out from the start if an infection is being caused by MRSA, so that it can be prevented from spreading to other people and animals, and so that it can (if necessary) be treated with the right kind of antibiotic.
Horses are a bit of a special case when it comes to animals and MRSA. When researchers look at the DNA of MRSA from a dog or a cat, it usually turns out to be one of the common human MRSA strains (usually called a “clone”) from the same area. This means that the dog or cat probably picked up the MRSA from a person somewhere. When researchers look at the DNA of MRSA from horses, however, they often find a different clone, which seems to be more common in horses and people who work with horses than in people in general. A very similar situation has also been discovered in pigs. The worry is that this “horse MRSA clone” can survive in and be transmitted between horses better than the human MRSA clones. That means that in order to control MRSA, just controlling it in the people won't do the trick - we need to take steps to stop the spread of MRSA in horses specifically as well.
Here are some key points to help reduce the risk of your horse (and you!) getting MRSA:
- Always wash your hands with soap and water (or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer) after handling a horse, and before handling another horse.
- This is especially important if you have touched a horse’s nose, or any cuts or wounds that the horse may have.
- Don’t go down the row of stalls in the barn and pet every horse on the nose! They love the attention, but this is a great way to spread MRSA if it’s there!
- New horses coming into the barn, or animals coming back from a hospital, should be kept separate from all the other animals and only dealt with after all the other horses, for 3-4 weeks.
- This is an important measure for controlling many infectious diseases, not just MRSA.
- If your horse has a cut that looks infected, cover it with a bandage of some kind and contact your veterinarian. Your veterinarian can culture the wound to determine if it is an MRSA infection.
Rabies vaccination...an Olympic event
In Beijing, 700 000 dogs have recently been vaccinated against rabies in order to combat the growing rabies epidemic there, and reduce the risks to people attending the 2008 Olympic games.
Unfortunately, rabies is common in China, with the number of cases increasing dramatically over the last decade. In 1996, there were 163 humans deaths due to rabies. This number increased to 3380 in 2007. Because of the seriousness of disease, the number of deaths and the low vaccination rate in dogs, a mandatory vaccination policy for dogs has been put in place. Free rabies vaccination is provided annually for each licensed dog. This could have a tremendous impact on the number of rabies cases, at least in certain regions. Control of rabies in rural areas is more problematic because of the lack of an organized registration and vaccination system for dogs in those areas. Perhaps not surprisingly, most cases of rabies occur in these rural regions.
So, the 2008 Beijing Olympics may have benefits for the dogs of China as well, or at least those in Beijing. This is certainly a preferred approach to the reports from last year of mass killing of thousands of dogs (including pets). Let's hope this progressive approach continues and the impact of this horrible disease decreases.
On a related note, the latest human death from rabies in Beijing was a person who was bitten by a stray dog two months before he became ill. He didn't seek medical attention at the time of the bite, he just cleaned the wound himself. If he had been treated for possible rabies exposure, he'd be alive today. While rabies is uncommon in many areas, no bite from an animal should be taken lightly. Rabies should always be considered and appropriate measures taken. More information about rabies is available in our Resources section.
Prescription pets
It’s not “take 2 doses of Fido and call me in the morning”, but contact with pets has been shown to be beneficial to people in hospitals and nursing homes. However, concerns have been raised about whether Fido could be spreading more than good will; from Salmonella and ringworm to superbugs like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Recently, new international guidelines for these programs were published in the American Journal of Infection Control. A joint effort of physicians, infection control personnel, veterinarians and visitation program representatives, these guidelines provide comprehensive recommendations on how to run these programs and reduce the risk of disease transmission. Among the areas covered are appropriate animals, health care for visitation animals, appropriate human-animal interaction and the roles of visitation programs, pet owners and hospitals. “The goal of these guidelines is to keep these highly beneficial animal-assisted interventions safe for all involved. That means protecting not only the patients but the pets, as well as other people and animals the pets may subsequently interact with”, said lead author Dr. Sandi Lefebvre.
The Great Indoors - Keeping Kitty Content
Many a cat owner still believes that a cat’s natural habitat is outside in the great outdoors, where they can hunt mice and birds, chase insects and climb trees. Even after being domesticated and bred in captivity for hundreds and hundreds of years, house cats of all breeds still have those basic feline instincts – they love to prowl, hunt, stalk, pounce, and some delight in tearing their toys limb from limb. But from a health and infectious disease control standpoint, the great indoors is a far better place for your feline friend.
- A cat that goes outside, especially one that hunts, is more likely to pick up bacteria like Salmonella, or parasites like Toxoplasma and intestinal worms, which can potentially be transmitted to people, whether or not the cat gets sick. Outdoor cats are also more likely to come home with parasites like fleas which, in addition to being a major nuisance to you and your pet, can also transmit tapeworms and may contribute to the transmission of cat scratch disease (bartonellosis).
- Cats that live exclusively indoors are also not at risk of contracting two very important viruses, namely feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV, which is the cat equivalent of the human HIV/AIDS virus) and feline leukemia virus (FeLV, which is sometimes also called Fe-Leuk). These viruses are transmitted by direct cat-to-cat contact, particularly during cat fights. They cannot be transmitted to people, but they can make your cat very sick and prone to other infections, some of which may be zoonotic.
- It’s also easier to keep track of your cat’s health if it doesn’t go outside. Changes in your cat’s drinking and litter box habits, which can be important indicators of various health problems, can be detected much faster if your cat isn’t finding alternate sources of water or places to do its “business” outside.
- And there are still other benefits to keeping your cat indoors, including not having to worry about your kitty being hit by a car, not having to treat fight wounds and cat bite abscesses, and not having your feline friend bringing little “presents” into the house, like dead (or not so dead) rodents and birds.
See our Resources page for more information on zoonotic diseases in cats.
HIV/AIDS and dogs
Here are a couple questions that I get periodically...
My dog licked someone with HIV/AIDS, and they had an open sore. Can my dog get HIV?
Can a dog that bites someone with HIV get infected?
If a dog bites someone with HIV then bites someone else right after, can it spread the virus?
The answers are no, no and it's very, very unlikely.
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) does not infect dogs. Regardless of how a dog is exposed, it will not develop an infection. HIV is also a very fragile virus. It does not survive long in the environment and a dog's mouth is not a very hospitable location. It is theoretically possible that if a dog bit someone with HIV and then immediately bit someone else, it could transfer the virus, but this has not ever been identified and is very unlikely. In some countries, the source of all cases of HIV are investigated, and an animal bite has never been implicated as a potential cause.
Bottom line....don't worry about HIV and your pets.
Cats and avian influenza
The picture on the right is a Picasso painting entitled "Cat catching a bird". I often use this picture in presentations and ask "What if that bird was infected with avian flu?"
Avian flu is a tremendous concern at the moment. While it is not (currently) easily transmitted between people, bird-to-human infections have been reported in various countries. Mortality rates are very high, and the concern is that this strain could change to become easily transmitted between people, and lead to a pandemic (worldwide outbreak) not seen since the Spanish flu pandemic in the early 20th century. While birds and people are the focus, some attention has been paid to other species, such as cats.
Fatal avian flu developed in leopards and tigers in a zoo in Thailand during an avian flu outbreak. It was suspected that they ate infected chickens. Similarly, avian influenza in a pet cat was thought to have resulted from eating a dead pigeon (the pigeon presumably having died of avian flu). The potential role of cats in transmitting disease was highlighted by a study that reported that cats can become infected by eating infected birds, and can transmit avian flu to other cats.
While unproven, cats could theoretically play a role in transmitting this virus from birds to people. It's unlikely cats would be a major factor in a flu pandemic, but if such a situation were to arise, any possible source of transmission would need to be considered.
Should we worry about cats and avian flu right now? Worry....no. Be aware....yes. H5N1 avian influenza is not currently present in North America and it's hard to say if/when it will appear.
Should we think about cats when making plans for management of avian influenza if/when if reaches us? Absolutely. It's issues like this that get overlooked in outbreak planning.
Should I keep my cat inside? Yes. Outdoor cats are exposed to a large number of different infectious agents, including parasites and bacteria that can infect people. Outdoor cats can also get into fights, during which animals can transmit important diseases or cause nasty wounds. Also (obviously), an indoor cat isn't like to get hit by a cat...an important cause of premature death in cats.
Avian flu is just one more indication that our relationship with infectious diseases is much more complex than we've thought, and that broad (ecological) approaches to infectious disease control are required. We need to think about household pets when considering emerging infectious diseases because of the close and prolonged contact that millions of people have with their pets.
Hazardous hedgehogs
While most people that want a pet stick to the tried-and-true species, there are a huge number of different animals available. Some make good pets, some are relatively harmless but not suitable for most households and some are potentially dangerous. Hedgehogs probably fit into the latter 2 categories.
No...hedgehogs aren't sneaking out of their cages and attacking people as they sleep. Rather, they can carry a variety of microorganisms that can be transmitted to people. There have been a few reports describing infections associated with hedgehogs, particularly Salmonella and ringworm. An excellent report in the
journal Emerging Infectious Diseases highlighted the diseases hedgehogs have been shown to, or could, transmit to people. Hedgehogs don't have to be sick to be a source of infection.
Hedgehogs have been available for years, but they may be a fad pet at the moment. One breeder is quoted as saying “They are going up these last two months we actually have a waiting list about twenty people,” said Sarah Roberts a breeder in Mansfield. “That's never happened in the year’s of breeding we've done.”
While any pet could transmit infections to people, certain pets are higher risk. Overall, species that are rare or 'fad' pets may be of greater concern because we simply don't know much about them (i.e. what diseases they can transmit, how to reduce risks...).
These small creatures can probably be safe pets in some households, but are they really better than other species? You probably should not have a hedgehog if you or someone else in the household has a compromised immune system or if you have small children. If you do have a hedgehog, don't let it roam freely in the house and wash you hands after handling it.
My dog has MRSA... what do I do?
This is a question that I get on a regular basis. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an antibiotic resistant bacterium that is a major cause of disease in people and is also a cause of disease in various animals species, including dogs and cats. It can cause a wide range of infections, from mild skin infections to rapidly fatal disease. Most MRSA infections in animals are treatable if managed properly and most are treated in the home (as opposed to requiring a stay at a vet clinic). Because of this, there are concerns about transmission of MRSA from infected pets to people in the household. Transmission of MRSA between people and pets (in both directions) definitely happens, although we don't really know how often this occurs.
If your pet has MRSA:
- Talk to your veterinarian about how to handle the infection
- Avoid contact with the infected site. If you have to touch it, use gloves and wash your hands immediately afterwards.
- Wash your hands regularly after contact with your pet
- Avoid contact with your pet's face...MRSA often lives in the nose, in addition to the site of infection
- Try to limit overall contact with your pet until the infection has resolved. Close, prolonged contact such as letting the pet sit on your lap or sleep on your bed should be avoided
- Follow your veterinarian's instructions closely. Always complete the full course of treatment, even if your pet looks better
- Talk to your physician if you have concerns about your health, particularly if you or someone in the household has a compromised immune system
Current recommendations are that there is no indication to test people or pets for MRSA carriage when there is an infected pet (or person) in the household. Testing might be reasonable in some circumstances where uncontrolled transmission of MRSA appears to be occurring in a household, but there does not seem to be a reason to test with single incidents of MRSA infection.
Studies are currently underway looking at transmission of MRSA in households where pets have an MRSA infection. Better information will likely be available in the future as a result of these studies.
More information on MRSA in pets will be available soon in our Resources section. Another good source of information is the Bella Moss Foundation, a charitable foundation dedicated to MRSA in animals.
