I’m always on the lookout for good-looking, easy-access resources to help communicate (and to help others communicate) messages around safe and responsible pet ownership, which is how this blog got its start! I also don’t like re-inventing the wheel when I don’t have to, and I appreciate that many organizations have people with vastly better
In some ways, the approach to rabies vaccine is easy. In other ways, it’s complicated. To some degree, the medicine is easy, but other considerations (like regulatory requirements) cloud the picture.
The medicine:
Rabies vaccines are highly effective. A single initial dose provides at least 1 year of protection. The first dose is supposed
I’ve been dealing with questions (and some threats) about this issue for many months:
How to handle overdue vaccines because of COVID-19 delays
It’s a complex issue that’s hard to navigate because of limited data. We know how most vaccines work when used according to the label instructions. We don’t know much about what happens
There’s an interesting report that pets of people with COVID-19 in Seoul, Korea (and soon other areas) will be tested for SARS-CoV-2 for free, if the pets are showing signs of compatible illness. This comes on the heels of the (unsurprising) identification of an infected kitten in the city at the end of January,
We know cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, and it appears that human-to-cat transmission may be pretty common in households where people have COVID-19. In the big picture, that’s probably not a huge issue, since most cats that get infected show no signs or develop only mild disease, and most infected cats have limited opportunity to
I got a question about an old post on this topic, so I decided to add a bit of information and re-post it. Not much has changed since it was written in 2018, apart from more reports of people and pets getting sick from raw pet food and raw treats.
I usually link blog posts to Tweets, rather than re-hash my Twitter musings (weese_scott) on the blog, but two things I posted on Twitter today may be of interest here.
COVID-19 in captive gorillas
Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has been identified in captive gorillas, in this case at the San Diego zoo. It’s suspected that
We are looking to recruit Canadian veterinary clinic staff who have had COVID-19 themselves for a study to learn more about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from people to their own pets (dogs, cats, ferrets). This study is being performed by Drs. Scott Weese and Dorothee Bienzle from the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph.
Who
I’ve let the blog slip over the past week so it’s catch-up time. (I’ve been busier on Twitter – @weese_scott if anyone wants to follow that).
I want to get back to some COVID-19 discussion, and rather than a multi-species update, I figured I’d back up and focus on an overview of one species at
Here’s a quick update on some recent feline studies on SARS-CoV-2. Some come with the increasingly common disclaimer that they are pre-prints, meaning the studies haven’t yet undergone peer review by other scientists in the field.
Cats in Hong Kong (Barrs et al. Emerg Infect Dis 2020)
This study has undergone peer review,
