Tag Archives: dog

Iowa town launches ‘pick up the poo’ campaign

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They found my passport. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa. About six hours after I cancelled it via the nice folks at the Canadian consulate in Dallas.

Cedar Rapids is also finding a lot of E. coli in area streams and figure some of that is coming from doggie doo.

The City of Cedar Rapids claims the roughly two tons of pet waste produced in Cedar Rapids every day is contributing to water pollution in the city.

To fight the fecal problem, Cedar Rapids launched a ‘pick-up the poo pledge’ to encourage dog owners to clean up dog droppings. City employees passed out information on runoff to pet owners and asked them to sign a pledge to pick-up after their pooches.

To learn more about improving and protecting water quality visit www.CityofCR.com/stormwater.

Restaurant to be vigilant against doggy butt infractions after warning

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I scan celebrity trash news sites like TMZ looking for food safety ledes.

Really.

And this is the unacceptable version of doggy dining.

Celebtard Aubrey O’Day’s decision to let her dogs rub their butts all over the table at a popular L.A. eatery last week has triggered a Health Dept. investigation, TMZ has learned, because, quite frankly, it’s disgusting.

TMZ broke the story, the "Celebrity Apprentice" star let her puppys wag their naked asses all over her table at Toast for several minutes, before finally putting the poochies on the ground.

Gross.

Now, a rep for the L.A. Public Health Dept. tells TMZ, a health inspector has visited the restaurant to remind employees about pet guidelines, specifically the one that reads, "Pets shall not be allowed on chairs, seats, benches and tables."

The rep adds, "The Health Dept would like people to enjoy eating with their pets, but we also want people to be respectful to other people."

We’re told the staff was quite receptive to the official, and no citations or warnings were issued.

A rep for Toast tells us the restaurant will be "extremely vigilant" about future potential anal infractions.

Pet dogs—A transmission route for human noroviruses? (and vice-versa)

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A new paper in the Journal of Clinical Virology by Maija Summa, Carl-Henrik von Bonsdorff, and Leena Maunula investigates the role of pet dogs as sources of norovirus. Abstract below:

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are one of the leading causes of diarrhoeal diseases worldwide in all age groups. Virus transmission can occur via the faecal-oral route from person to person or via contaminated food, water, or surfaces. The most common NoV strains circulating among humans belong to genogroup GII. Thus far, to our knowledge, no HuNoVs have been detected in pets.

We investigated whether pet dogs could serve as carriers for HuNoVs and thereby transmit the infection to humans.

Ninety-two faecal samples of indoor pet dogs were obtained. The main criteria for sample collection were that the dog or humans in the household had suffered from diarrhoea or vomiting. All samples were screened for HuNoV genogroups GI, GII, and GIV by real-time one-step RT-PCR.

We detected HuNoV in four faecal samples from pet dogs that had been in direct contact with symptomatic persons. Three of the positive samples contained genotype GII.4 variant 2006b or 2008 and one GII.12. All NoV-positive dogs lived in households with small children and two dogs showed mild symptoms.

Our results suggest that HuNoVs can survive in the canine gastrointestinal tract. Whether these viruses can replicate in dogs remains unresolved, but an association of pet dogs playing a role in transmission of NoVs that infect humans is obvious.

Gonzalo Erdozain: Pick up after pets; windy city clear about zoonoses

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Stepping in dog poop is annoying, but the health hazard is unknowingly ingesting or contact with the poop.

While walking around Chicago, I came across this sign that is unique in its clarity: Pet waste transmits disease (right, exactly as shown).

It goes straight to the point and informs the public of the real reason behind the need to clean after our pets in public places.

Dog poop can spread hookworms and roundworms, both of which can infect humans and have severe consequences: ocular larva migraines from roundworms; cutaneous larva migraines from hookworms.

Gonzalo Erdozain: water and soap are for sanitizing; dog tongues are for licking dogs

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Scott Weese from Worms & Germs Blog said it best, “a dog’s tongue is not a medical device.”

According to an article by All Pet News (referencing a study by University of Florida Gainesville), in which risk for zoonotic transmission was obviously disregarded, treating human wounds with dog saliva leads to wounds healing twice as fast. It’s the perfect example of lab results being extrapolated into real world situations without proper knowledge or testing. Although dog saliva may have antibacterial properties and Nerve Growth Factor, you can’t conclude from lab-controlled experiments, using purified concentrated compounds, that a dog licking a wound is beneficial.

Lefebvre et al. (2006) published a paper titled “Prevalence of zoonotic agents in dogs visiting hospitalized people in Ontario: Implications for infection control,” in which zoonotic agents were isolated from 80 out of 102 (80%) dogs.

Clostridium difficile, was the most prevalent agent, isolated from 58 out of 102 (58%) fecal specimens, 71% of which were toxigenic. Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase Escherichia coli was isolated from one dog, extended-spectrum cephalosporinase E. coli was isolated from three dogs, and organisms of the genus Salmonella were isolated from three dogs.

Common sense would state that if you use your dog’s saliva for wound healing, you probably wouldn’t be washing it after being licked. This would increase the risk for wounds in general to get infected, but if your wound is on your hand, you are also at a higher risk of getting you and others (via cross-contamination) infected with a zoonotic disease. I don’t know about laboratory dogs, but I know my dog spends a lot of time licking herself, including her rear end. So as cute as those images of dogs licking their owner’s face look on TV, I keep my dog’s tongue away from me.
 

Best in show: dog show leads to E. coli outbreak in Sweden

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Around 50 dog owners and several dogs are believed to have been infected with enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) following a dog show in eastern Sweden.

"We’re right in the middle of investigating where the bacteria came from," Britt Åkerlind of the infectious disease unit of Östergötland County told The Local.

So far, two Swedes have been confirmed as infected by EHEC, one from Skåne in the south, and another from Gothenburg in the west.

"But we’re expecting more confirmed cases to come in," said Åkerlind.

Those infected with the bacteria all attended a dog show near Norrköping in eastern Sweden held the first weekend in June.

Of the roughly 120 participants, who traveled from all over Sweden as well as from Denmark, Norway, and Finland, about half have come down with symptoms stemming from EHEC infection.

"We’ve also received reports that some of the dogs have had upset stomachs," said Åkerlind, who labeled the outbreak as "quite large."

BARF diet for pets endangers species

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The BARF diet is rooted in the philosophy that all things natural are good, and that science or human experience cannot improve on nature.

The Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, or Bones And Raw Food, diet, also known as the "prey model," in which owners try to feed their pets critters similar to what they’d hunt in the wild, has resulted in a surge in illegal sales of raw wild game online, Florida wildlife investigators say.

USA Today reports that in 2010, its first year, Florida Fish and Wildlife’s Internet Crimes Unit logged 177 arrests and 92 warnings for cases involving illegally buying or selling wildlife or raw game meat online, some of it for pets.

Pet owners go on Craigslist and eBay, asking where they can score a squirrel, pheasant, rabbit, goose, duck, chicken, just about any game to feed their cats and dogs. Some seek raw fish, meaty bones and organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys — everything a growing carnivore needs.

"It’s happening nationwide," said Lt. George Wilson, head of the Internet Crimes Unit. "The philosophy behind it is feeding your pet a hormone-free, naturally grazed diet.

"We’re seeing solicitations for wild ducks, anything wild."

The Internet provides a way around having to pay taxes or pay for licenses to sell wild game, investigators say.

But these Internet outlaws skirt regulations that ensure meat is sanitary and comes from game hunted in-season. They threaten to create black markets for wildlife similar to what existed for alligators 50 years ago, Wilson said.

"It’s the unlicensed people that would be trafficking them," said Jim Deason, owner of Sweetwater Plantation, a farm in Bristol, Fla., that sells live deer for breeding. "Any of the people that I know, they’re pretty above board on things like that. If there’s anybody selling game, it’s probably going to be backwoodsy folks."
 

No puppies in the post

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The UPS store has many informative flyers, signs and brochures. One is a Ghostbusters’ circle with a line through it to indicate, no animals: UPS will not courier pets.

I asked the woman who was preparing my package if the sign was really necessary and she said, yes. Some people try to mail pets elsewhere; on a UPS truck, in a box.

A 39-year-old Minnesota woman was charged with cruelty to animals after she allegedly tried to post a puppy to a relative from one side of America to the other.

Last week Stacey Champion sealed the dog, a male four-month-old Schnauzer called Guess, in a box and was outted only when the cardboard box containing the dog fell off the counter when she was trying to pay for ‘high priority’

Mrs Champion, who had paid $22 for Guess to be posted, wanted to transport the puppy quickly, using two-day priority.

Mrs Champion was charged with animal cruelty. She now apparently wants the dog back.
 

The truth about sleeping with cats and dogs

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It was a come-and-meet-a- real-live Canadian event when I first met Amy in Kansas in 2005, and when I first told her that sleeping with her dog was a microbiological risk.

I also told her French food was overrated and she shouldn’t eat rare hamburgers.

She asked me out on a date.

In a study to be published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, veterinary scientists say sleeping with your pets increases the chances of contracting everything from parasites to the plague.

Andrew Schneider of AOL News reports most U.S. households have pets, and more than half of those cats and dogs are allowed to sleep in their owner’s beds.

Personal note: our dogs do not sleep in the bed, but the cats do, primarily in the winter when it’s too cold to go outside; in the summer we are of no use and the cats can disappear for days.

Drs. Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Ben Sun, chief veterinarian for California’s Department of Health, say they wanted to raise the attention of people, as sleeping with a pet is becoming quite common, and there are risks associated with it, even if it is not very frequent.

The authors found that "the risk for transmission of zoonotic agents by close contact between pets and their owners through bed sharing, kissing or licking is real and has even been documented for life-threatening infections such as plague, internal parasites" and other serious diseases.

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.

Sharing our resting hours with our pets may be a source of psychological comfort, but because pets can bring a wide range of zoonotic pathogens into our environment, sharing is also associated with risks, the authors of the current study reported.

• A 9-year-old boy from Arizona got the plague because he slept with his flea-infested cat.
• A 48-year-old man and his wife repeatedly contracted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which their physicians eventually attributed to their dog. The animal "routinely slept in their bed and frequently licked their face," the California experts reported.
• A Japanese woman contacted meningitis after kissing her pet’s face.
• A study published last August in the journal Pediatrics tracked an outbreak of salmonella in 79 people between 2006 and 2008 that was caused by contaminated meat in dry cat and dog food.

Half of the victims were children, who CDC investigators said "might also have played with the pet food and then put their hands — or the food itself — in their mouths."

11 tons of listeria-ladnen meat missing; that’s nobody’s business but the Turks

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There’s some shady going-ons involving11 tons of listeria and salmonella-contaminated hamburger meat in Turkey.

Today’s Zaman has been reporting the meat scandal broke after a company, Fasdat G?da, responsible for distributing meat to fast-food giant Burger King, cancelled its contract with a producer called TT G?da – on grounds that the meat was contaminated.

TT G?da demanded that the 11.6 tons of meat be returned, but Fasdat G?da said it had been sent to the Zeybek Solid Waste Center for safe disposal, prompting TT G?da to file a complaint with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Subsequent investigations showed that the waste disposal company sent the meat to a kangal dog farm in Bursa, where 55 dogs were said to have eaten the rank 160,000 hamburger patties over a period spanning May 5 to June 7.

The ministry’s Inspection Committee head, Metin Süerdem said that if the dogs did eat the meat, they would have been killed.

“This shows the meat was not eaten by the dogs,” he said.

“We got an expert to investigate this claim. It is impossible for dogs to eat such an amount of meat in two months. There is only one possibility left: This meat was on the market,” Süerdem said.