“17 pets found dead in foreclosed Wash. home - St. Louis Post-Dispatch” plus 1 more

17 pets found dead in foreclosed Wash. home - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Posted: 23 Jan 2011 09:53 PM PST

GRANITE FALLS, Wash. — Police say they found at least 17 pets dead inside a foreclosed and abandoned Granite Falls home.

Police Chief Dennis Taylor says he found 15 to 20 dead cats and two dead dogs at the home. He says the home is owned by Fannie Mae, which foreclosed on it in October. The property manager recently sent a locksmith to the home to change the locks, and he reported the odor coming from the home to police.

Taylor says some of the animals have been dead for months. Three emaciated cats survived and have been turned over to Pasado's Safe Haven animal shelter.

A 65-year-old woman abandoned the home after it went into foreclosure.

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Sleeping next to pets could be dangerous - Chicago Sun-Times

Posted: 24 Jan 2011 04:48 AM PST

Sleeping next to pets could be dangerous

Jan 24, 2011 02:33AM

8-25-05 Hotel Monoco, Chicago DOG DAYS of SUMMER series... Hotel doggie Stevie Nix lays on the rooms king-size bed. The hotel offers rooms for guests with dogs. [KEITH HALE/Sun-Times]

Sleeping with your pets can make you sick.

It's rare, but it happens. That's why good hygiene means keeping Fluffy and Spot next to the bed, not on it, two experts in animal-human disease transmission say in a forthcoming paper.

More than 60 percent of American households have a pet, and depending on the survey, 14 percent to 62 percent let their dogs and cats sleep with them. That can be dangerous, says Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California-Davis school of veterinary medicine.

"There are private places in the household, and I think our pets should not go beyond next to the bed," Chomel says. "Having a stuffed animal in your bed is fine, not a real one."

Chomel and co-author Ben Sun, chief veterinarian with the California Department of Public Health, did an extensive search of medical journals and turned up a hair-raising lists of possible pathogens.

There's plague (yes, bubonic plague, i.e. the Black Death); chagas disease, which can cause life-threatening heart and digestive system disorders; and cat-scratch disease, which can also come from being licked by infected cats. Gannett News Service

Pets Zone

Monday, January 24, 2011