Is anything wrong with cuddling up with your furry pet these cold winter nights ? Can this affect the pet owner's health?
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M$5 Answers
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M$
It's great for your mental health (and for keeping warm!)
If you have an allergy to pet dandruff, you may experience worse symptoms by sleeping with them.
Other than that, make sure they don't have fleas or ticks, and you should be fine.
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M$
ANGEL has been neutered; with the ignorant hysteria of indiscriminately neutering animals before checking their DNA to see which ones have this amazing ability to save human life and prolong the lives of elders who are much happier and live longer, and healthier with an animal to care for. Over 500 thousand of these precious life-givers are put to death every week, in one state alone. Cats who end the need for anti-depressants which cause suicides. If you bathe your cat twice a month you will have no cat dander to react to. Cats like to be kept clean. Cats do fear water, they were deliberately drowned by humans for centuries (gene memory). You must be very gentle and speak reassuring words to bathe any cat. They learn to trust you. Cats designed by mother nature to sleep with you, keep you warm, love you tenderly, and to prolong your life with soft vibrating purrrrrrs which drop your blood pressure. Men who love cats are far better lovers...cats are very feminine little creatures. Exact size and feel of newborn infants
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M$
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M$The researchers included studies of a nine year old boy who developed plague, an out break ot 79 cases of salmonella, a woman who died of septic shock and a man who died from infection, as well as 20,000 annual cases of "cat scratch fever" which ..."can cause severe problems, including swelling of the lymph nodes and sometimes lethal damage to the liver, kidney and spleen of humans."
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/20/letting-sleeping-dogs-lie-in-your-bed-can-kill-you/
http://www.accessrx.com/blog/current-health-news/pets-sleep-bed-harmful-0121
Ignoring the facts becaue you have not yet contracted a disease or because sleeping with your pet is comforting or cute seems short sighted and unwise. One of the researchers made a sensible statement that we should all take to heart:
“I think pets can be very nice in the home environment, but certainly, they don’t belong on the bed,”
http://www.accessrx.com/blog/current-health-news/pets-sleep-bed-harmful-0121
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M$
That's BS. CDC is not a biased source.
Which facts IN MY ANSWER are you refuting? Didn't think so.
from your businessweek source, which does not present the information in a biased way:
"While people need to be aware that it's possible to get sick from a pet, the health benefits of ownership far outweigh the risks, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz of the Yale School of Medicine and co-author of the text book Human-Animal Medicine: Clinical Approaches to Zoonoses, Toxicants and Other Shared Health Risks. Research has shown that besides offering psychological support and friendship, pets help to lower blood pressure, increase physical activity, reduce stress and lift owners' spirits, among other things."
And, I like this quote from near the end of your ABC citation:
""People who have weakened immune systems and small children certainly need to be more careful. But for the majority of people in the U.S., it's probably more dangerous to sleep in a bed than it is to sleep with your pet," Karesh said, citing data from 2004 that suggests 450 people die each year in the U.S. falling out of bed. "
So, if you are the nervous type, instead of not letting your dog sleep on your bed, swap places with him and sleep on the floor. That could save hundreds of lives a year.
First, a quote from one of the articles you've cited: "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."
If this is the case, and if one is going to be one of the rare instances of contracting disease from domesticated pets, then one can get such a disease just by coming in regular contact with the animal. Most pet-owners that I know are very hands-on with their pets, cuddling them, holding them on their laps, sitting next to them and touching fur to skin. So if anyone is really concerned about catching disease from cats or dogs, they might as well not have pets and avoid other people's pets as well, let alone sleeping with them. Me, I think I'll continue to take my chances.
The CDC is not biased but the CDC article is not out yet and this is article from accessrx.com is someone's sensationalist interpretation of the results.
Here are four more sources that say the same thing, including Business Week and ABC. Same facts Same conclusion. No facts to be refuted, no bias, other than one overzealous Mahalo sherrif-wannabe.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=124933
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Sleeping-with-your-pooch-bad-for-health/articleshow/7341408.cms
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/649011.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/pet-intimacy-boostd-infection-risk/story?id=12616995
The study cited is clearly biased, at least as reported by the accessrx folks. Note a quote from that article:
"The study found that 53 percent of dog owners allow their canines to sleep in bed with them. The number of cats who nap in bed is even higher. "
Consider how many dog and cat owners there are. (about 75 million Americans).
Yet they come up with one case of plague from fleas and a few thousand cases of a cat disease and a few other rarities.
If you are worried about catching disease, don't sleep with other humans. That's much more dangerous. Getting plague from your pet sleeping with you is far less likely than being struck by lightning. Lightning is about fifty times more likely to hit you, if you work it out.
What a cutie! She looks just like my parents' last dog, right down to the white markings.
Thanks, I'll tell her you said so. She's right here next to me ... in bed! :-) I don't actually know what kind of mix she is, but I think there's whippet and terrier in there. Found my Sassy girl in the woods when she was just a few months old.