In the past, I’ve written it’s not a good idea to let pets sleep with you because a study found E.coli, a bacteria that can cause illness, on the pillows, sheets, and blankets.
At the end of the article I said, “Fecal matter on your pillow. Yuck.”
However, the problem can be much worse than that.
Examples of serious illnesses that can occur when pets sleep with people, according to an article Wednesday in The New York Times, are:
- A woman had a fever and signs of a bacterial skin infection in her leg. An ulcer between her toes was infected with a type of bacteria often found in the mouths of cats and dogs. She regularly slept with her cat, who licked her feet and toes.
- A man who slept with his dog developed an infection around the surgical site after hip surgery. The bacterium was a type found in the mouths of cats and dogs and transmitted through bites and scratches.
- People have caught plague, which can be transmitted by fleas, after sleeping with pets.
The article said these cases are rare.
If you do let pets sleep in your bed, follow these suggestions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
- Use running water and soap to wash your hands after playing with, feeding, or cleaning up after your pet.
- Keep pets and their supplies out of the kitchen.
- Disinfect pet beds and supplies outside the house. Don’t clean pet items in the kitchen sink, food preparation areas, or the bathroom sink. Home surfaces can get contaminated with germs and people could get sick from touching them.
- Remove dog poop from your yard and public places using a bag. Poop from cats and dogs contain parasites and germs.
- Don’t let kids play in areas that may contain dog or cat poop. They could get roundworms and hookworms. Put a lid on sand boxes to keep cats from using them as a litter box. Daily cleaning of a cat’s litter box will reduce the dangers of parasite exposure.
The interesting thing is that The Times article had 510 comments. Almost all of them described people’s pets and how it was positive to sleep with the pets. However, one did say “Tick, tick, tick.”
