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Parasites
The dog in your bed probably won’t kill you
A month or two ago, there was a lot of press about the risks of pets sleeping in beds. It was in response to an article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that didn’t put forth any new information, but summarized a few diseases that could potentially be transmitted by pets. Unfortunately, the relative risk…
Resistant heartworm, cause for concern?
Heartworm is a parasitic infection (primarily of dogs) caused by Dirofilaria immitis, which is spread by mosquitoes. In areas where the parasite is present, the standard recommendation is for preventive treatment of dogs during the mosquito season, and annual testing to make sure they don’t have the disease. Numerous types of heartworm medication are…
Kinkajou owners beware
Kinkajous are strange little mammals from the Procyonidae family – the same family to which raccoons belong. Kinkajous are native to Central and South America and are occasionally kept as pets, but they don’t make great pets because they are strictly nocturnal, can be cranky when woken during the day, and can sometimes be aggressive.
Plague in Oregon
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports has a short report about two plague cases in the US. Plague, while often thought of as a historical disease (the Black Death), is alive and well in wild rodents in some areas of the world, including parts of North America, and human cases continue to…
Chinchillas and Giardia
One concern with uncommon pets is our relatively poor understanding of the infectious agents they may carry. For our "established" pet species, we have a reasonable understanding of what bugs tend to be present and which animals may be at higher risk. The less common the pet, the less research tends to be available, making…
Reducing risks with raccoon latrines
An interesting paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases (Page et al. 2011) describes an impressively large effort to study the effect of anthelmintic (dewormer) baiting on parasite contamination at raccoon latrines sites in Indiana.
Raccoon latrines can be highly contaminated with various parasites, because raccoons congregate at these sites and use…
Miami Beach’s Cat Poop Map
Miami Beach officials, disturbed by reports of a hookworm outbreak, have taken a rather unique approach to the problem: they’ve created a cat and cat poop map.
This fall, several cases of cutaneous larval migrans were reported – and highly publicized – in the Miami Beach area, something that is of particular concern for…
Dogs and Giardia types
While the potential health risks to people exposed to dogs with Giardia have received a lot of attention (and concern), there’s more and more evidence indicating that dogs pose a very limited risk to people. Giardia is a protozoal parasite that can cause diarrhea in numerous animal species, including people and dogs. It can also…
Infectious disease considerations for fostering pets
Humane societies and shelters are often overwhelmed by the number of animals that come in. It’s pretty uncommon to see much (if any) empty space in most shelters, and overcapacity shelters lead to increased risk of disease transmission, outbreaks and suboptimal care of the animals that are there.
One way of helping deal with overcrowding…