Covid And Pets

Social distancing applies to pets as well as humans in households with positive cases of COVID-19. Confirmed cases of pets infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are being reported across the U.S.

“We do need to talk about our pets,” said Susan Culp, DVM, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service veterinarian in the Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases. “If you do have a human in a home that is diagnosed positive, in addition to isolating from other people, they need to isolate from their pets.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, recommends avoiding contact with your pet including petting, snuggling, being kissed or licked, sharing food and sleeping in the same bed. If you must care for your pet or be around animals while you are sick, wear a cloth face covering and wash your hands before and after you interact with them.

Texas Animal Health Commission, TAHC, reported a dog in Tarrant County was confirmed to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 on July 7. The case was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories.

Although the dog from Tarrant County was tested through a private veterinary diagnostic laboratory, the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, TVMDL, also performs testing for SARS-CoV-2.

TVMDL began testing for SARS-CoV-2 in April and works with the Texas Department of State Health Services, DSHS, and TAHC. Currently, animals can only be tested with approval from the DSHS state public health veterinarian and the TAHC state veterinarian.

TAHC, TVMDL and DSHS work together using a “one health” approach by providing guidance in accordance with CDC.

While that was the first confirmed animal detection in Texas, there have more than 20 diagnosed cases in the U.S., according to USDA, which states, “We are still learning about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 in people, but it appears that it can spread from people to animals in some situations.”

A small number of animals worldwide have been reported to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, mostly after close contact with people with COVID-19. Culp said according to the CDC, the risk of a positive-testing animal spreading COVID-19 to people is considered to be low.

“Based on current knowledge, there is no evidence that pets play a significant role in spreading SARS-CoV-2 to people,” said Andy Schwartz, DVM, TAHC state veterinarian. “It’s always important to restrict contact with your pets and other animals, just like you would other people, if you are infected with COVID-19 in order to protect them from infection.”

“It’s also important that any animal suspected of possibly being infected with SARS-CoV-2 also be evaluated for the other common causes of respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms,” said Bruce Akey, DVM, director of TVMDL, adding TVMDL can provide an array of testing for these more common, and more likely, causes of illness in the animal, as well.

Culp explained that coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, and animals can have their own coronaviruses. Some coronaviruses can cause respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses in some animals.

The chances are very low that the human can spread it to the animal, but it can happen, Culp said. She said people diagnosed with COVID-19 should follow the CDC guidelines and keep themselves away from their pets as well as other people.

The CDC provides some information for all pet owners in What You Need to Know About COVID-19 and Pets.

The CDC, USDA and state public health and animal health officials are working in some states to conduct active surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in pets, including cats, dogs and other small mammals, that had contact with a person with COVID-19.

According to the CDC, these animals are being tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection and also tested to see whether the pet develops antibodies to this virus to help better understand how common SARS-CoV-2 infection might be in pets as well as the possible role of pets in the spread of this virus.

“The CDC also has guidelines for anyone who has a service dog,” Culp said. “They don’t have to separate themselves, but certainly should wear a mask.”

Culp said CDC guidance indicates routine testing of animals for SARS-CoV-2 is not recommended.

“If you have an animal that a veterinarian believes to have clinical signs, they will approach it from a ‘one health’ approach,” Culp said. “CDC wants the vet to rule out all other causes of the clinical signs first. Then if that is done and still believed the animal may be infected, the vet will contact the state animal health official and state public health veterinarians.”

The state veterinarians will work with the USDA on sample collection and submission.

“We want to let people know it is not common, but it is possible,” Culp said. “If you have COVID, take the precautions and social distance from your pet.”

Helping Fellow Heroes

Every storybook needs a hero. Sometimes even the hero, needs a hero. Maine’s own Christy Gardner is a hero in every sense of the word. We share part one of our two part series on her mission…

Christy Gardner played high school and college sports, in Maine, before serving in the U.S. Army.

“I was overseas peacekeeping, I was injured in the line of duty,” says USA Paralympian Christy Garnder, “I ended up having to skull fractures, spinal chord injury, some other fractures, I lost two fingers, and then both legs.”

Gardner battled for years in recovery.

“About a year and a half on active duty rehabbing,” says Gardiner, “Then when I came home, another 3 1/2 years with physical therapy, and occupational therapy, and speech therapy through the V.A.” A recovery aided by a dog.

“Moxie is my savior,” Gardner says, “she is my service dog.”

Who reminded Christy that even heroes need a hero sometimes.

“Another Veteran I met kept inviting me to adaptive sports events,” says Gardner

Despite being told she wouldn’t play sports again, Christy found a way to compete.

“I started doing the winter and summer sports clinics that the V.A. puts on,” say Gardner, “The V.A. winter sports clinic it’s skiing and snowboarding all day. Then at night, they introduce a new sport like kayaking in the hotel pool, wheelchair basketball, and then sled hockey.

She’s now been on the USA Women’s Sled Hockey team for 8 years.

“As far as you can go, as a female in the sport,” says Gardner, “It takes so many different muscles, and so much athleticism. It’s so competitive because it’s full checking in high speed. It’s just an amazing sport.”

It helped her find clarity in her mission.

“I went back to the University of Southern Maine and graduated with a degree in recreation therapy,” Gardner says.

A clear mission. Help people, and if there is no way to help, find one.

“I interned at the V.A.,” says Gardner, “I said ‘I wonder if they give us ice time to let the veterans come to public skating.’ We started a sled hockey program for disabled veterans here. We are the New England Warriors. We’ve been in the local hockey league for I think five years and we’ve won the league twice. It’s so much fun to be a part of a team and to excel at some thing at a competitive level.”

Gardner has found another way to be a hero for heroes. She trains service and therapy dogs to make a difference like she felt.

“Teach them all the basics. Sit, stay, lay down, be housebroken, those sort of things,” Gardner says, “And just socialize them and desensitize them to different environments. I started doing that and then I really got into more of the training.”

Which is where we find our protagonist…..

We’ll introduce you to Lucky, who now has a book about him, and see how he is helping Christy with her mission in part two Tuesday night.

Chip Implants For Dogs

By the end of this year, every pet dog in Shenzhen, Guangdong province will be required to be implanted with a chip that bears information about its owner.

The chip is about the size of a grain of rice and would hardly have an impact on the animals’ health, experts say.

“It is a common practice to supervise pet dogs with chips in Western societies,” said Zhang Jianjun, a law enforcement officer in Shenzhen Municipal Comprehensive Law-Enforcing Bureau of City Administration.

“From October, pet dogs without chips will be recognized as illegal. In November, we will enhance law enforcement and punish the owners of pet dogs without chips,” Zhang added.

Every chip has a unique number to help identify the dog owner efficiently if the dog goes missing. It also helps prevent the owner from abandoning the dog, according to Yu Xinyi, chief of the Shenzhen small animal veterinary association.

The bureau has paid visits to developed countries and regions to learn how their governments supervise pet dogs. In April last year, Zhang also visited the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to learn about the city’s dog-managing practices.

“We have adopted the common practices and have also made some adjustments. The chips and implantation fees are free for dog keepers,” Zhang said.

To date, Shenzhen has signed chip implantation service contracts with 100 pet hospitals.

Xing Fulan, an assistant veterinarian in one designated pet hospital, has injected chips into 22 dogs.

“The chip implantation needle is a little bigger than a normal vaccine needle, thus it is a bit more painful than a vaccine injection for pet dogs,” Xing said.

There are two different sizes of chips: a large one is for bigger breeds, and a smaller one for more diminutive dogs.

Before the injection, the owner’s personal information will be input in a special data system with the unique number of the chip. Then, the chip will be injected into the dog.

No adverse reaction has been found in the dogs, Xing added.

Pet owner Wu Zhifan has raised her golden retriever for nearly one year. Her dog was a stray that had been abandoned by its last owner in Zhuhai, Guangdong.

The dog suffered a lot, with a broken leg and skin disease. But it retained its docile character that prompted Wu, who was actually scared of dogs, to take it back to Shenzhen and keep it.

Due to her experience, she naturally agrees with chip implantation.

“If it does not hurt dogs, it is a good way to protect them as they are so loyal to us,” she said.

There are about 160,000 registered pet dogs in Shenzhen. Pet hospitals that are qualified to inject chips will be listed on a WeChat public service account for dog owners’ convenience.

For owners who have difficulties taking their dogs to be injected in pet hospitals, the bureau can coordinate to provide door-to-door injection services, Zhang said.

The Research On Dogs

“Humans have experimented on dogs for millennia, because their trust in people and willingness to obey commands makes them easier to work with,” according to a Washington Post article on July 7.

Using this as the main guideline for decades, the VA still conducts cruel and inhumane experiments on dogs at their facilities.

Reps. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, and Brain Mast, R-Florida, in their USA op-ed, related the details of latex injections into the arteries of puppies and running them on treadmills until they died, injecting Dobermans with methamphetamines and subjecting beagles to various invasive procedures.”

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), issued a report July 1 that has been praised by animal activists because it recommends very narrow use of dogs in research by the VA, and urges the VA to “validate, develop, and apply alternatives to the laboratory dog in biomedical research.”

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie in his statement of July 7 seems to take the NASEM report in a different context, stating that, “canine research is the only viable option for developing and testing certain treatments to improve the quality of life of some seriously disabled veterans.”

Technology makes it possible to re-create creatures that lived millions of years ago, and we have advanced to the point of creating human organs using 3-D printing — and Wilkie wants us to believe that we still need to play Dr. Frankenstein in the medical labs with dogs to help our veterans?

Shalin Gala, vice president of PETA International Testing Methods, states that “VA’s use of dogs in testing does nothing to address veterans’ real health needs.  The same results can be obtained by “synthetically engineered human cardiac tissue and advanced computer models.”

The cost to taxpayers (which includes veterans), for these canine research programs is beyond the pale.   Six VAMC contracts for purchase of canines for biomedical research from January 13, 2017 to April 2019 involved 48 dogs priced at $1,682.92 each for a total cost of $80,780.16.  The genius who brokered this procurement deal is probably sunning his toes on some nice warm beach with an adult beverage in hand!

The VA Office of Inspector General released its findings July 14 regarding non-compliance issues in the canine research studies which cites problems within VA that included lack of communication between people responsible for the continued brutal treatment of dogs and former VA Secretary David Shulkin and current VA Secretary Wilkie.  Shulkin and Wilkie both stated that they did not have prior knowledge to seven research studies. However, the OIG report states Wilkie gave verbal approval to continue these studies at a November 6, 2018 meeting.

It is a lot of finger pointing, which helped no one, and millions of dollars spent on cruel research using dogs.

Chris Green, an attorney with the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School, was one of the 15 members of the NASEM study done of the VA biomedical research practices at VA. Green stated that “the justifications that had been traditionally done for using dogs in biomedical research were no longer valid in our opinion.” NASEM suggests that the “VA create a strategic road map for using more experimental methods not involving animals.”

Dogs give the human trust and complete loyalty, and every time one of these animals are used in barbaric experiments; we lose a bit of our humanity.

The VA could do better by getting more financially enthused in supplying service and companion dogs to the hundreds of disabled veterans across the country.

The VA will recommend a service dog for a veteran; however it does not pay for the dog, training of the dog or, vet care for the dog. No insurance will pay any expenses for a veteran needing a service dog.

Private organizations across the country do the best they can in helping veterans obtain an approved Assistance Dog, but it is a costly and complicated process for everyone involved.

Contact your U.S. Representative or Senator and demand the end of research on dogs.

Veterans need your support for creation of a program paid for by the VA to see that veterans who need service dogs get them at no charge!

Rescue Dogs Take Some Photos

Nathanael Strickland launched his dog gear brand, Boston Made, with a mission to give back.

Show Matches Pets With Owners

Comfort Dog Elijah

Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and within the local community we have people making a difference.

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church has a dog named Elijah that is a comfort dog.

He is not a therapy dog, but he is trained to be a comfort animal for people of all ages.

Elijah doesn’t run and play, but instead is there to sit and be pet by anyone that needs comfort.

He has brought comfort to people all over Texas, going to Hurricane Harvey survivors as well as people in Midland, Odessa and El Paso after the shootings in those areas.

Elijah doesn’t do home visits, but will come to schools and places like The Arc’s Child Care and Parents’ Night Out.

If you’d like to schedule a visit from Elijah, his contact is Jo Ann Kurtz and she can be reached at (940) 386-2190.

Service Puppy Cheers Up Girl

A six-year-old girl paralyzed in a car crash in Wellington last month met a new furry friend at St Mary’s Medical Center Monday.

Six-year-old Memphis Rose Hamman was paralyzed from the neck down after a fatal car crash in Wellington back in June.

Memphis lost her great-uncle, Kenneth Graden, in the crash near Lake Worth Road when a driver crossed the median and hit Graden’s car head-on.

“It was horrific,” Tanya Meade, Memphis’ grandmother told CBS12 News.

Meade was also in the vehicle when the crash happened.

“With something like this, there’s just no understanding,” Meade said. “You can’t understand it.”

Memphis still has a long road to recovery ahead of her, but to make life a little bit easier, several local foundations teamed up to unite her with her four-legged service puppy, Juliet.

“This is what we’re all about, locals helping locals,” Lori Griffith from the Chasin’ A Dream Foundation told CBS12 News.

Griffith first received a call from Memphis’ family after the crash and was able to connect them with the team at “Furry Friends” who happened to receive a new service dog for training on the exact same day that Memphis was injured in the car crash.

“She’s always just had such a soft spot for dogs,” Gayrene Meade, Memphis’ mother told CBS12 News. “When she found out she could have one – I mean to see that smile on her face, there’s nothing better. ”

The puppy will report to a training “boot camp” for the next year while Memphis undergoes rehab at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Philadelphia.

A donor from Jupiter donated nearly $40,000 to pay for Memphis and Gayrene to fly to Shriners next week, but the family’s medical bills are sky high.

Service Dog Helps Woman

Sydnee Geril, of Ocala, Florida, initially decided not to take her dog with her to her treatments out of an abundance of caution, until late May, when she discovered a one-piece suit for dogs called the “Shed Defender.” which controls shedding.

Now, her German Shepherd has been able to stay clean and by her side.

“I’m so happy to have her back,” Geril told Today. “I honestly did not realize how big of an impact she had until I didn’t have her.”

The Shed Defender, or as Geril calls it, “the super suit,” has been sold for nearly four years, so it was not designed for the coronavirus pandemic.

But Geril’s German Shepherd, Tulsa, wears the suit with booties to cover the majority of her fur.

The suit makes cleanup easier for Geril every time the dog visits the hospital. All she has to do is wipe down Tulsa’s face and wash her suit instead of giving her a full bath.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing clothes from an ill person using the warmest possible setting.

Geril was diagnosed in October 2017 with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that affects children and young adults. After nine months of treatment, Geril went into remission and adopted Tulsa to train her to become a therapy dog.

Therapy dogs cheer people up in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care centers. Geril was inspired to get a therapy dog by those visits from therapy dogs that cheered her up during her hospital stays.

Unfortunately, Geril’s cancer returned after eight months of remission, so the two-year-old puppy is now in training to become her personal service dog. Service dog training takes about two years to complete, and the dogs learn to cater to their owners’ personal needs.

Geril’s chemotherapy treatments and fear of needles cause her to faint frequently, so it is up to Tulsa to alert her before a fainting episode happens.

She said the body undergoes a chemical change before passing out, and dogs can detect this chemical change. If Tulsa detects this change through smell, she paws Geril’s leg to let her know she has between ten to 30 minutes before she will start to feel light-headed.

“It’s huge; it’s given me my freedom back greatly,” she said. “I can go out by myself now.”

School Welcomes Therapy Dogs

A local school district has a surprise for students when they return to the classroom.

This surprise has four fuzzy legs and a furry wagging tail, and she can’t wait to meet the students.

Meet Rhys, a therapy dog for the Warren County School District.

The district is excited to announce the arrival of the 6-month-old pup.

Melissa Stephanski, is not only Rhys’s caregiver, but the chief academic officer for Warren County Public Schools.

“These dogs can go in and can be in classrooms, they can be at events. If we have a student in crisis or a staff member then we would certainly be able to have our dogs on hand if we need them. Sometimes we have situations where a social worker may come and see a child and a staff member is not able to go in with them because that is their protocol; the dogs can,” said Stephanski.

Rhys is a labradoodle.

She was donated to the school district along with another dog, by Deer Creek Labradoodles of Louisville.

A grant is funding training for the therapy dog.

Rhys isn’t the only local school therapy dog.

Western Kentucky University’s counseling and testing center has a poodle mix named Star.

Dogs brighten people’s day and can provide a sense of comfort that humans cannot always provide according to Betsy Pierce, a therapist at WKU.

“I think dogs read our body language and our emotions because they’re tuned in,” Pierce said. “As people, we can read each other but we’ve usually got 14 other things on our mind at the time, and we are analyzing the awkwardness and ‘what should I say and do,’ and dogs are just there. They are just going to be with you. If you are sad or mad or whatever it is, they are just going to be with you.”A second therapy dog, Beau, will make its way to the Warren County schools sometime in the next few months.