Should You Kick Your Dog Out of Bed Tonight?
In a not-uncommon scenario, the doctors treating the couple with MRSA couldn’t quite figure out exactly how his patients contracted MRSA, which may be transmitted any number of ways. So rather than appear indecisive, they blamed the couple’s dog. For a stumped diagnostician — or a reporter facing a slow news day — pets are an easy scapegoat. Schneider writes: “Kissing pets can also transmit zoonoses. A Japanese woman contacted meningitis after kissing her pet’s face.”
Um, is it just possible the Japanese woman’s pet isn’t the only one she locked lips with? Like many diseases, meningitis can be transmitted from human to human. And what kind of “pet” did the Japanese woman kiss — or doesn’t that matter? Schneider continues:
But disease can easily be transmitted by your pet kissing you. The study cited cases where a woman died of septic shock and renal failure after her cat, with whom she slept, licked open sores on her feet and toes. In another case, a 44-year-old man died of infection after his German shepherd puppy licked open abrasions on his hands.
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This indicates a disturbing trend: When in doubt, diagnosticians won’t hesitate to blame the nearest animal when an illness’s true culprit is unknown. But dogs aren’t the only scapegoats. Succumbing to an anti-feline MSM bias we’ve seen before, Schneider writes:
As strange as it may be to canine lovers, more people have cats than dogs, and these felines also carry disease. This study and several others show that disease from cats is far more prevalent, and often more serious.
The number of cats snuggling up with their owner is far greater, which may explain the larger number of people acquiring feline-spawned diseases, Chomel explained.
Take cat scratch disease, for example. The bacterial infection, caused by Bartonella henselae, comes from infected fleas and flea feces and is transmitted to humans, often simply by a cat strolling across a food preparation area that isn’t disinfected before food is placed on it. Mostly, the victims of cat scratch disease are children, infected by the scratch, lick or bite of a cat. The pathogen can cause swelling of the lymph nodes and sometime lethal damage to the liver, kidney and spleen of humans.
The CDC estimates that more than 20,000 people can contract cat scratch disease a year, but the federal disease agency could offer no information on the number of deaths.
If there’s no information on the exact number of deaths, isn’t this hearsay? Just because “20,000 people can contract cat scratch disease a year” doesn’t mean that 20,000 people actually do. According to the CDC’s own site,
Although animals can carry germs, it is important to know that you are more likely to get some of these germs from contaminated food or water than from your pet or another animal you encounter.
“None of this is really new news,” says Dr. Elizabeth Higgins, staff veterinarian at the Humane Society of New York clinic:
These are isolated cases that don’t definitively prove anything. If people are responsible about vaccinations, flea control, and heartworm prevention, which prevents a wide range of parasites, then sleeping with pets doesn’t put us at any more risk than living with pets. Prevention is simple with common-sense hygiene and regular vet visits. To contract intestinal parasites from a pet, you’d have to ingest the animal’s feces; as long as the person cleaning up after the pet washes their hands or uses sanitizing wipes, there’s very little risk.
I have three cats and three dogs; two of my cats and one of my dogs sleep with me, and another dog sleeps with my daughter. And everybody’s alive and well in our house. I think, overall, our mental and emotional well-being far outweighs the minimal risks of contracting something. My pets are up on the couch and my kids are hugging and kissing them – I’m not going to put a stop to that. I know I would be a lot more stressed if I didn’t have my pets at home – and the more stressed you are, the more susceptible you are to illness. My family’s dogs and cats bring us comfort and strengthen our immune system.
It’s easy for the MSM to exploit pets because obviously, they can’t speak up for themselves. But with animals proven to advance human wellness, pets deserve not to be demonized as so many bundles of contagion or opportunistic infection, and pet coverage needs to be taken more seriously. It merits the same level of accurate, responsible, balanced reporting — complete with hard facts, not hearsay — as any other new topic.
A sensationalist, clearly biased story such as Schneider’s merely speculates about a potential public health hazard where none actually exists. Not surprisingly, AOL swings both ways when exploiting pets for fun and profit: When it’s not publishing anti-pet articles like this one, it’s taking a decidedly pro-pet position on its dedicated animal site, Paw Nation. As my colleague Maria Goodavage writes in her daily blog on Dogster.com:
I hope that when the [CDC] study is published, it doesn’t get blown out of proportion by the popular press and cause people to start kicking their beloved pets out of bed. Flea control and hand (face?) washing can probably go a long way to reducing whatever risk there may be.
Well said, Maria, except media-manufactured panic about zoonotic diseases has far more serious ramifications than pets getting kicked out of bed. It’s more likely to result in pets getting kicked to the curb. When the MSM exploits animals with cruelly irresponsible reporting, the consequences are serious. Sadly, this species of “news story” spreads the kind of panic that deters people from adopting pets and motivates pet owners to abandon their animals. With literally millions of dogs and cats languishing in our country’s animal shelters, this is no time for the mighty MSM to be scaring readers off of keeping pets.
Animal shelters all over the country are reporting serious overcrowding, with as many as 8 million healthy, adoptable pets put to sleep each year. In California, where the CDC report’s authors are based, the situation is especially dire, with the state’s municipal animal shelters having to kill thousands of healthy, adoptable dogs and cats for want of space and adopters.
Even if you don’t care for animals other than as food sources, as an American taxpayer, such appalling waste of your money is sure to give you pause.
It is concerning that such nonsense is being printed because it assumes a reading public that cannot detect logical errors and is ignorant of the scientific method (anecdotes prove nothing).
The newspaper article contains some obvious examples of post hoc ergo propter hoc errors:
The study cited cases where a woman died of septic shock and renal failure after her cat, with whom she slept, licked open sores on her feet and toes. In another case, a 44-year-old man died of infection after his German shepherd puppy licked open abrasions on his hands.
Most people know that human saliva is much more germy than dog saliva. Would these claims have been made if human saliva contacted the wounds? Offering such anecdotes should instantly discredit the article for properly educated readers, and we have to get education out of the government’s control before it gets even worse.
Oh, remember that band, Three Dog Night?
As a health care professional, another question arises from this ANECDOTE. Open sores on the feet can be symptomatic of serious immune deficiencies. Thus, the person in question could have been very ill already, or perhaps unusually vulnerable to her pet’s saliva, when a healthy immune system would have blocked any opportunistic saliva-transmitted infection.
Such “news” stories serve more to discredit the media who published it.
Yes, dogs have germy mouths but it’s still safer to kiss a dog than a person:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/t/story?id=1213870
Our dogs have never been allowed to bed.
We have had the privilege to own numerous dogs, mainly Rottweilers and German Shepherds during our thirty-year marriage (my wife had a dog since she was 11-years old). Only once we’re forced to get rid of a dog due to a long stay in Asia. That dog we donated to an organization that trained seeing-eye dogs for blind people. We followed his life for years and were extremely proud that he was a star of a newspaper article.
We had a few dogs obtained from shelters, and despite all the trouble, we kept them to the end of their lives.
Owning dogs and cats is a huge responsibility, and it’s sad to realize that so many pets are being thrown to the wolves for selfish reasons.
Thank you for the article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351521/Woman-returns-rescue-dog-clashed-curtains.html
It’s worse than that: Look what happened to Congress when they tried to put lipstick on a pig.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
The so called “anti-feline bias of the MSM” is nonsense. The essential evil of cats is simply a cold, hard objective fact. You say that the cat was licking the sores on a women’s feet. “Licking sores”? You mean drinking the blood from wounds which were, in all likelihood, caused by the cat’s years of nocturnal scratchings and chewings in the first place.
How can you be so blind?
To the uninformed, pets lick sores on them or on us to heal them, not to infect us. The cat was merely seeking to relieve its owner’s illness. The cat ran far more risk catching something from the owner than the other way around.
I do believe that he was being sarcastic. At least, I hope so.
No,he’s stupid
Why “No” he’s stupid. Could be both.
Yes, even in the Old Testament, “the beggar was laid at the rich man’s gate, and the dogs came and licked his sores”, so even then the people with sores had an advocate, the very dogs in the streets showed love and a caring attitude, when humans ignored their plight and looked the other way. If your pets are clean and healthy, and your hygiene is good, nothing to fear. I have had as many as five or six kittens sleeping at the foot of my bed, and I am still alive and healthy.
Here we go again! More fear mongering from the so-called experts at the top! I can just hear them now : “If only we can get funding for a program to increase public awareness!”
“I can just hear them now : “If only we can get funding for a program to increase public awareness!”
What do you mean “IF?”
This is an exagerated use of scientific info to advance an agenda. YES, animals do carry MRSA bacteria, as well other bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc., but so do humans. It is the compromised person, from other reasons, that allow the normal cells / person to become infected. For example, if a masquoto bites us, we will not blame the cat or dog for infecting us. On one occasion the masquoto bite may result in a MRSA, but that doesn’t mean that the masquoto carrid the MRSA bacteria. Your scratching, lack of cleaning, use of antibacterials which upset the normal flora, or mal nutrition possibly caused the normal tissue to allow the “usually normal” bacteria to grow agressively. It’s like killing the messenger , because of the message. We carry MRSA, probably more than animals.
A life-long acquaintance has been diagnosed with a disease infecting his lungs and untreatable with today’s drugs. The doctors told him it is a disease people get from dogs. The acquaintance has always lived in close quarters with his dogs. The disease is preventing a heart operation that he needs to survive. Perhaps under-reporting such diseases in the past has led to the perception that pets living in close environments with people carries no risk.
If you review medical literature, you will find that most people are allergic to pet dander, yet I know people who give their kids allergy shots and medication without removing in-house pets and without testing for allergy causes. For two generations, Americans have been raised with cute animal stories and the concept that animals are humans in another form. Prior to WWII and antibiotics, sulfa drugs and steroids, people associated filth with disease because disease often meant death. People kept animals outside, because it was impossible to keep a clean environment with inside pets. That knowledge disappeared with the drugs that appeared 70 years ago; now many of the old infectious diseases are reappearing in a drug-resistant form.
What is the truth? Do we trust medical professionals more than anyone else? We are all biased toward animals, but wishful thinking and ignorance can still kill you.
Iknow I have lived with and slept with my dogs and cats for 70 years and have not “caught” anything from them except devotion and love and the desire to please me. I feel so sorry for those who have not experienced this with another species and who have denied their children the experience.
Or perhaps you have been infected with that most horrible of zoonoses, Liberal Argument Syndrome, where a single supportive FOAF anecdote is capable, in what’s left of the sufferer’s mind, of outweighing all other evidence.
Do you sleep with a liberal? Perhaps you should kick him out of bed.
“… media-manufactured panic about zoonotic diseases has far more serious ramifications than pets getting kicked out of bed. It’s more likely to result in pets getting kicked to the curb. When the MSM exploits animals with cruelly irresponsible reporting, the consequences are serious. Sadly, this species of “news story” spreads the kind of panic that deters people from adopting pets and motivates pet owners to abandon their animals. With literally millions of dogs and cats languishing in our country’s animal shelters, this is no time for the mighty MSM to be scaring readers off of keeping pets.”
I have spent 70 years trying to re-educate my family who think that animals are “dirty, disease-ridden flea bags that should be kept outside.” Now this which undoes all my efforts. I have rarely been without a dog, a cat, or both in my 70+ years; and I have yet to “catch” anything from them. The benefits far outweigh any risks.
Biloxipat I like you. I am well over 70y/o, grew up with a cat sleeping with me most nights. In those days cats were roaming outside during the day and inside at night. My own children are in their mid to late forties, grew up with cats, guinea pigs, rats and a hamster. No illnesses resulted. Today they all have a couple of dogs each as well as children.
My late husband caught MRSA on his first ever stay in a hospital due to an accident.
I currently have three Teckels (dachshunds) and had a couple that died of old age before. Two of my current ones sleep on my bed or under the covers. What made me laugh about that silly study is the fact that one CAN catch Giardia from dogs was never mentioned. It happened to me last spring and both the dogs and I were treated with the same medication which took care of the problem. Strangely enough the prescription from the vet was $80. for two dogs, and my own was $20. co-pay. Go figure.
I think it’s safe to say that there is a possibility of catching disease from what you sleep with.
Please, interested readers of dog and puppy issues, check out the trials and tribulations of newbies and their very French toy Poodle. Laugh and cry with us at http://www.notesonthepuppypapers.blogspot.com.
IT will affect how people live as well. If you need a home, you live alone with several pets and no one will rent to you because they don’t want animals in their precious home, what will you do? Send your animals to an undeserved death? Give them away to strangers who may just as well abuse them as do right by them? IT affects a lot more than JUST the animals themselves.
Personally speaking, Spot ain’t goin’ nowhere. Spot is sleepin’ just where he has been for the past nine years. On his own blanket, sharing a pillow with my other half. Spot is lovely to listen to at night when the house is quiet and dark, just before sleep silences all and you hear him enjoying his rest. He is the best for those cold winter nights when the thermostat is turned down and there is a slight chill and his warmth is shared with cold feet. And when Spot stands, stretches and reaches over to gently give a kiss good night? Well. Need I say more? Out out damned Spot? Never.
Nothing better than falling asleep to the gentle snore of dogs at ones feet.
The example of the people who died after having open wounds licked by their pets struck me as strange, based on my own experience. Whenever my dog licked a cut of mine, it would heal literally overnight without any infection whatsoever, and I have read that dog saliva contains something that promotes healing. My dog (whom I adopted from The Humane Society) sleeps with me; I don’t worry about it because he is bathed regularly, has no fleas and is up to date on all of his vaccinations.
When I was a child it used to be common to look for a dog to lick one’s cuts or scrapes. It was accepted that dogs’ saliva had infection healing ingredients and was magical.
My cat has her own bed on mine, frequently washed, and I have no plans to change this arrangement. I am far more concerned about the socialist in the White House and his plans to transfer economic power from individuals to the federal government than my aging, beautiful tiger cat.
Well said, LeighB. Well said.
I’m my cat’s bed half the time (he loves to sleep on my back). LOL!
I’ve learned in recent years that being a Pulitzer Prize winner means nothing.
There are a great many three dog nights where I live so they will stay on the bed. So will the cat on those rare instances when she deigns to join our pack.
Reminds me of a story my vet told me. A young lady brought her parrot to have him look at it. She confessed that she had herpes and was concerned if she could infect the parrot. His first thought was, “Not unless you are doing weird things with your parrot.” Of cousrse he told her, “No way.”
The media need to create a sense of wide spread impending doom to keep their circulation up and those advertising dollars rolling in. Americans love their pets and own millions of them. What a perfect target to gen up a disaster scenario and so easy to do. Initiate or dig up a “scientific” study that fits the template complete with “peer reviewed, convincing statistical evidence” offered by “experts.” Does the Anthropogenic Global Warming scare come to mind? Pet owners beware. You may soon be required to pony up a Medicare surcharge to offset the cost of this recently exposed health risk and, incidentally of course, make Obamacare deficit neutral. I’m just sayin!
One further remark from me: Why is it that “science” has become such a kill-joy field? For everything we humans enjoy, science finds a new reason to label it dangerous. I’ve stopped believing anything. I kiss my puppy on the lips and write about it. Animal lovers of reason and sense, see “Kissing Sugar on the Lips” at http://www.notesonthepuppypapers@blogspot.com. Today, I am still here and breathing. About tomorrow, we’ll see who wins, science or pet love.
Would rather sleep with my pets than any liberals I can think of!
I heard this on the radio this past week. My immediate reaction, “You have got to be kidding!”
How soon before we see PETA ads telling us to get rid of our pets because of the health risks they pose to us?
PETA does want to get rid of pets entirely. They believe that it is wrong for people to “own” animals — not realizing that it is our pets who own us — 5 mornings a week, after breakfast my dogs go back to bed, I go to work. Who’s got the upperhand there?
I can’t imagine going to sleep without my Sparky & Maggie (both rescue shelter dogs.
I’m much more concerned about catching mad-cow via breathing prions in the air than I am over my indoor cat’s dander/spittle/feces:
Airborne Prions Make for 100 Percent Lethal Whiff
Wow…I’ve slept with the dogs who have owned me for some 40 years now. Apparently I’m lucky to be alive!!! So now congress will pass a “no sleeping with your pet” law. Of course, the likes of Barney Frank REALLY sleeping with animals will not be included in the measure!
How does Katie Couric sleep with that chinchilla on her head? Does she get any sores when she keeps it from moving all day & night? How about Wrinkly Old Sock, Bob Schiefer? My dogs are three times as more intelligent than these Borg drones from the MSM.
They don’t call them All Online Losers ‘fer nuthin’.
I feel special if my dogs even let me share in the covers.
Greedy lil’ so in so’s…
Everybody is forgetting the main thing about the whole piece,……It’s from California !!!
Oh well, if I die because I sleep with Stitchie, at least I’ll die happy. Loving a living being, whether a dog or a human always involves an element of risk, but the rewards vastly outweigh the risk.
There are bigger dangers to my health in Washington, DC. Nobody is talking about kicking them out of bed.
Thread winner!
My German Shepherd Dog once walked over and licked my eye while I was laying in bed. the next day I had a black eye like I had bruised it. the Kellogg Eye Center took me in that day and prescribed Cipro which cleared it up.
I feel the need to mention that dogs and cats have completely different kinds of saliva. Cat saliva is full of toxic germs whereas dog saliva is very clean and is even known for promoting wound healing.
If you ever get bitten by a cat and the puncture wound is deep, get thee to a doctor right away. I was giving my cat Leo a bath (something he abhorred as most cats do) and he got really freaked out and he bit me deeply on the fleshy part of my palm right below the thumb. The pain was instantly so excruciating that I fainted (and, I’m not usually a fainter…ever). I idiotically thought the pain would subside but it got increasingly worse, my hand blew up twice the size and the pain began to shoot up my entire arm until I was writhing in agony. My husband got me to the doctor early the next morning and the doctor told me I was lucky it hadn’t gone systemic yet and gave me a prescription for penicillin and pain-pills.
I’ve had some horrible tooth-aches, whip-lash, broken-bones, giving natural home-birth to my daughter but there is nothing to describe a cat-bite that infects a part of your body. That kind of pain is pretty darned scary and I can definitely understand that someone could die of a cat-bit if left untreated!
I don’t think our finding joy in our four legged friends,unless they happen to be camels, is acceptable anymore. Any and every aspect of what brings a smile to our faces and/or pride in our hearts or peace to our souls is suddenly “harmful” and needs to be addressed. BS. Me and my dogs are all cuddled up for a long Winters night sleep,Bible on the bed stand and rifle in the corner. Pleasant dreams
.
Our little family concurs with this thoughtful and insightful post. I can’t imagine waking up without the ‘girls’.
Cat scratches and bites are potentially dangerous. I’m lucky in that I’m fairly resistant to infection, so my constant rough housing with my recently deceased playmate never gave me more than some pretty livid scars on my hands and arms – even light scratches that don’t break the skin will swell and go a lovely shade of red, which tells you something about the state of their claws, and deeper (drawing blood) ones can get quite nasty. As Delia at #31 points out, it can get bad, and for a deep bite even I would probably go to the doctor. But mostly I don’t worry, if a scratch or bite goes bad you have time to get medical attention, I would surmise that deaths are very rare.
Simply having them sleep in the bed though isn’t all that risky. My remaining two cats will continue to sleep on my bed/pillow/lap as long as they want.
Anyone who can read surely knows that close contact with an animal or person can lead to transmission of disease, so the original article was a stupid waste of time, just a filler, as is this critique. A more important and less obvious question would have been “how can a 20 pound dog take up so much space?”
This article and Solway’s limp critique of Charles Krauthammer don’t meet the standard of Pajamas Media. What is happening over there? Is the quality control department on vacation?
My father worked with sheet metal everyday and as a consequence would come home every once and a while with cuts to his hands and arms. Our cats would constantly lick at his wounds and not only did he not contract any horrible disease, but many of his cuts healed a lot faster and cleaner.
The key is keeping your pets as healthy and disease free as possible. Pets provide so many benefits to humans, the real issue is when we don’t return the favor.
I worked at a vet’s office years ago. Somebody asked the vet if they could get worms if their dog licked their face. The vet’s answer: “Well, anything is possible, but most things are highly unlikely!” Seems like his response would fit this story perfectly.
What a load of horse manure this story is. I’ve slept with cats for years, and I’m healthier than most people I know.
I can’t begin to imagine the danger involved if you were to sleep with your favorite goldfish. I mean, you’d have to do CPR on the poor thing after about five minutes and then your lips would be SWARMING with ichthyological perils…
Yuck.
I cannot speak to the zoonoptic disease transmission risk of sleeping with one’s pets, but I can definitely vouch that it would be far more dangerous to my health to try removing my cat(s), from sleeping on my chest, (they take turns through the night inhaling my soul).
If kitteh wants to stay warm and soft, then kitteh is going to take STEPS and employ COUNTERMEASURES to REMAIN where it’s warm and soft.
And I’m not going to argue the point and risk eight sharp little claws sinking into my flesh at zero-dark-thirty in the morning.
OMG, Bilge, ya just done stole my heart. lmao!
I’m a cat person. She sleeps on the bed. Unless she doesn’t, of course. I’m not sure if I could make her do otherwise if I wanted to.
There’s a cat for every bed in our house and we are healthier and have fewer colds,allergies and other problems than anybody we know. Most of my friends’ children are always sick and getting one infection after another.
Excellent. well written article! As many of the other commenters have noted — I am struck by the fact that the claims, as credible as they may be at face value, are really little more than a series of anecdotes and aren’t presented in a scientific manner. It’s therefore impossible to draw any real conclusion from them.
The Plague case is interesting, though. My wife and I used to live in Santa Fe, NM, and there had been a case of Bubonic Plague that struck someone whom our neighbors knew. I think it may be the case cited in the article.
I suppose you could either blame it on the flea, the cat, the human, all three, or the living environment.
In the absence of a scientifically conducted study on the subject, plain ol’ common sense governs how people and their pets hang together. At least that’s what Sophie and Maggie have told me to say.
scythe “Personally speaking, Spot ain’t goin’ nowhere. Spot is sleepin’ just where he has been for the past nine years. On his own blanket, sharing a pillow with my other half. Spot is lovely to listen to at night when the house is quiet and dark, just before sleep silences all and you hear him enjoying his rest. He is the best for those cold winter nights when the thermostat is turned down and there is a slight chill and his warmth is shared with cold feet. And when Spot stands, stretches and reaches over to gently give a kiss good night? Well. Need I say more? Out out damned Spot? Never.”
scythe…you are my hero
There has been at least one, and often 3, dogs in my bed for over 40 years. Never ‘caught’ a damn thing from them…but they have healed my heart and soul many times.