Q: I’ve a compromised immune system, and I need to undertake a cat. What do I have to learn about defending my well being?
A: Many individuals are immunocompromised due to physiological components like being pregnant or extremes of age, metabolic circumstances corresponding to diabetes, infectious ailments corresponding to HIV, or remedy with immunosuppressant medicine for autoimmune ailments, most cancers, or organ transplantation.
Individuals with compromised immune techniques can benefit from the well being advantages of dwelling with pets supplied they take precautions. Discuss together with your well being care supplier in regards to the specifics of your individual well being whereas retaining the next common pointers in thoughts.
Undertake a wholesome grownup cat as a result of adults are much less prone to carry illness than kittens. Make certain the cat is sterilized, present on vaccinations, and assessments damaging for the feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency viruses, as a result of each suppress the cat’s immune system, making the cat vulnerable to ailments you possibly can catch.
Preserve your cat indoors to stop looking and publicity to different animals that will carry illness. Don’t let your kitty drink from the bathroom or stroll on kitchen counters or tables.
Have your veterinarian look at your cat at the least as soon as annually. Preserve vaccinations present, as a result of ailments like rabies are transmissible to people.
Deworm your cat month-to-month and ask your veterinarian to conduct fecal testing twice per 12 months. Intestinal parasites like roundworms and hookworms can infect indoor cats and unfold to people.
Have another person scoop the litter bins. If that’s not attainable, put on gloves and a masks, scoop every day, and wash your fingers afterward.
Feed the cat a high-quality, cooked, industrial weight loss program. By no means give your cat unpasteurized dairy merchandise or uncooked meat, poultry, fish, or eggs as a result of they enhance your threat of creating food-borne infections.
Even indoor cats can host fleas, so apply a flea preventive all year long. This is not going to solely maintain your cat comfy but in addition shield you from cat scratch illness, which is transmitted by flea feces.
Preserve your cat’s claws trimmed. If you’re scratched or bitten, don’t permit your cat to lick the wound. As a substitute, wash it with cleaning soap and water, and name your well being care supplier.
Wash your fingers after dealing with your cat and earlier than consuming.
Your veterinarian is considered one of your loved ones docs, so confiding in your vet about your individual well being will assist make sure that each you and your new cat stay wholesome.
Q: Our canine Bogie typically nibbles acorns. I discourage him once we’re outdoors collectively, however when he’s alone within the fenced yard, he could eat them with out my data. Are acorns poisonous?
A: Acorns include tannins that style bitter and dry out a canine’s mouth, so most canines don’t like them. Nonetheless, if Bogie does nibble a number of acorns, their poisonous results—lack of urge for food, delicate vomiting, and diarrhea, which normally resolve on their very own—should not particularly harmful.
Nevertheless, if Bogie swallows a big amount of complete acorns, they may block his intestines, inflicting lethargy and repeated vomiting. If this happens, take him to his veterinarian instantly.
If the acorns are moldy from mendacity on the bottom, the molds could cause tremors and different neurologic issues that require aggressive remedy.
Given the dangers and Bogie’s curiosity, it might be greatest to rake or blow the acorns out of your yard so he can’t eat them.
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