Link to Original Story

Fido’s No Doctor. Neither Is Whiskers.

By HAL HERZOG
Cullowhee, N.C.

A dog or cat owner spends roughly $10,000 on the care and feeding of his pet over its lifetime. (Dogs cost more per year, but cats make up for it by living longer.) What does he get for this investment?

Surveys indicate that what most pet owners mainly want is companionship, unconditional love and a play pal. In recent years, however, we have also begun to regard pets as furry physicians and four-legged psychotherapists.

The idea that domestic animals are beneficial to human health and happiness has been fueled by books like “The Healing Power of Pets: Harnessing the Amazing Ability of Pets to Make and Keep People Happy and Healthy,” by the veterinarian Marty Becker, and by news reports claiming that having a dog helps you live longer or that swimming with dolphins can cure autism, bad backs, attention deficit disorder and even cancer. But is there any truth to these claims?

The task of distinguishing hype from reality on this question falls to anthrozoology, the new science of human-animal relationships. In 1980, Erika Friedmann, a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, found the first evidence that animals might provide medical benefits: a survey of 92 heart attack victims revealed that those who had pets were nearly five times more likely to be alive a year later than those without them.

Since then, research has shown that stroking an animal lowers blood pressure, that AIDS patients living with pets are less depressed and that pet owners have lower cholesterol levels, sleep more soundly, exercise more and take fewer sick days than non-pet owners. Indeed, I have a stack of articles in my office supporting the hypothesis that pets are healthy for us.

Unfortunately, however, I also have another stack of articles, almost as high, showing that pets have either no long-term effects or have even adverse effects on physical and mental health.

A 2006 survey of Americans by the Pew Research Center, for instance, reported that living with a pet did not make people any happier. Similarly, a 2000 Australian study of mortality rates found no evidence that pet owners lived any longer than anyone else. And last year Dutch researchers concluded that companion animals had no effect on their owners’ physical or mental well-being. Worse, in 2006, epidemiologists in Finland reported that pet owners were more likely than non-pet owners to suffer from sciatica, kidney disease, arthritis, migraines, panic attacks, high blood pressure and depression.

This pattern of mixed results also holds true for the widely heralded notion that animals can cure various physical afflictions. For example, a study of people with chronic fatigue syndrome found that while pet owners believed that interacting with their pets relieved their symptoms, objective analysis revealed that they were just as tired, stressed, worried and unhappy as sufferers in a control group who had no pets. Similarly, a clinical trial of cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy found that interacting with therapy dogs did no more to enhance the participants’ morale than reading a book did.

As for the presumed curative powers of swimming with dolphins, researchers at Emory University who reviewed the dolphin therapy studies concluded that every one purporting to document positive health effects was methodologically flawed.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to disparage animal companionship; pets are central to my life, too. But the truth is that we know little about how pets could affect us biologically, or why a health benefit accrues to some people but not others. Answering these questions will require the same rigorous methods that scientists use to test the effectiveness of drugs and medical procedures.

Despite the importance of pets in our lives, researchers in the health and behavioral sciences have, until recently, largely neglected the study of human-animal relationships. But this is changing. In 2008, the National Institutes of Health (in conjunction with Mars, the corporate giant whose products include pet food) began a multimillion-dollar research initiative that will eventually help separate fact from wishful thinking on how pets influence human health and happiness.

No doubt, the talk in some medical circles of prescribing puppies and kittens for the chronically ill is well intentioned. But until the research is complete, pet lovers should probably keep taking their Lipitor and Prozac.

Hal Herzog, a professor of psychology at Western Carolina University, is the author of “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals.”

Not surprisingly, cats took a double hit on the negative news front...

The article below maligns the cat family as a bunch of "furry fakers"!

Cairo School District "CATs" are fortunate indeed...that the Superintendent does NOT read CAT Tracks. (Hey...I take him at his word. Why would he lie about a thing like that?!)

I mean...

If the CSD Superintendent did read CAT Tracks, teachers would surely see an increased scrutiny on their use of sick leave! (We've already had major battles over the use of Personal Leave and Association Leave. We don't need to add Sick Leave to the mix!)

And, anyway...

The article states that cats "play" sick when they are placed under stress. What about all the medical studies that show a definite link between stress and physical illness in human beings???!!! But cats are "playing sick"..."faking it"? Gimme a break!

So...if the Superintendent should somehow "hear" about this article and begin questioning the validity of sick leave requests by CATs, rest assured that he will be reminded that it is HE who is usually responsible for stress amoung CATs...and by raising the issue is exacerbating the situation. Mr. Superintendent: Treat your CATs right and they will (might?) purrform accordingly. Treat them badly...you are creating a purrfect storm!

Bears reminding...

Dogs Beg...CATs Negotiate!

From the msnbc.msn.com website...

Link to Original Story

Kitty not eating? Maybe the furry faker's mad at you

Healthy cats act sick when they are upset, study finds

Live Science

They don't talk, but when cats are upset about a change in their environment they let you know by acting sick – refusing to eat and vomiting excessively, even if they're healthy, a new study finds.

"For veterinary clinicians, when you have a cat that's not eating, is not using the litter box or has stuff coming up out of its mouth, the quality of the environment is another cause that needs to be addressed in coming up with a diagnosis," said study researcher Tony Buffington, a professor of veterinary clinical sciences at Ohio State University.

When cats in the study experienced "unusual external events," such as a change in the caretaker or feeding schedule, the healthy ones were just as likely as the chronically ones to exhibit sickness behaviors. [Related: Cats Stress Out, Too]

Playing sick

The study used two groups of cats – a set of healthy cats and a set of cats with feline interstitial cystitis (IC), a chronic illness characterized by recurring discomfort or pain in the bladder. Both groups demonstrated the same number of sickness behaviors in response to unusual events, and in both groups, the risk of acting sick over disrupted routines tripled from when everything stayed the same.

The research project hadn't begun as a study of cats' tendency to exhibit sickness behaviors. Judi Stella, a doctoral candidate in veterinary preventive medicine, was the primary caretaker of 20 cats with IC and of healthy cats housed in Ohio State's Veterinary Medical Center. Based on previous work about the benefits of environmental enrichment for cats that stay indoors, Stella spent months setting up a standardized feeding, play and cleaning schedule that seemed the least stressful for all of the cats.

Eventually she noticed the cats with the chronic illness looked better: Their coats were shinier, their eyes were clearer, and no cat had missed the litter box or vomited for two weeks.

Buffington said, "What we found, in other clinical studies and with this study, is that by enriching the environment, you can reduce IC cats' symptom burden by about 75 or 80 percent."

Stressing out cats

After the environment was stable for all of the cats in this enriched environment, Stella observed them for 77 weeks, tracking any changes in behavior.

During this period, the researchers made various changes to the cats' environment, including discontinuation of contact with Stella, a combination of husbandry schedule changes (food removal, and withdrawal of playtime and music), a three-hour delay in feeding time and a dramatic change in caretaker personnel.

During control weeks, when the routine was unaltered, the healthy cats exhibited an average of 0.4 sickness behaviors, and the cats with IC exhibited 0.7 sickness behaviors – virtually no difference between the two. Similarly, during weeks containing "unusual external events," the number of sick behaviors increased to 1.9 for healthy cats and 2.0 for cats with interstitial cystitis. Overall, this translated to a 3.2-fold increase in the risk for sickness behaviors by all cats when their routines were disrupted.

The study was published in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Speaking of stress...

On the same website that discounts stress in cats - defaming same as "furry fakers" - appears another article that attributes the New Year's Eve "rain of birds" in Arkansas to...yep, stress...from fireworks displays.

'Twould appear that "stress" can KILL birds. But if "Whiskers" should experience a tummy ache, he is a "furry faker".

No respect...

From the msnbc.msn.com website

Link to Original Story

'Stress event' blamed after birds rain from sky

Scientists believe fireworks may have frightened red-wing blackbirds

Environment

BEEBE, Ark. — Thousands of dead red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky in an Arkansas town on New Year's Eve after massive trauma, tests by veterinary officials concluded on Monday.

As many as 5,000 birds mysteriously rained on Beebe, Ark., after nightfall.

"The birds suffered from acute physical trauma leading to internal hemorrhage and death," the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said in a statement. "There was no sign of chronic or infectious disease."

The birds were otherwise healthy, according to the statement.

The injuries were primarily in the breast tissue, with blood clotting and bleeding in the body cavities.

Dr. George Badley, the state's top veterinarian, told NBC News that the birds died in midair, not on impact with the ground.

That evidence, and the fact that the red-winged blackbirds fly in close flocks, suggests they suffered some massive midair collision, he added. That lends weight to speculation that they were startled by something.

'Loud noises'

Scientists believe that fireworks appeared to have frightened the birds into such a frenzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other. Some may have flown straight into the ground.

"Loud noises were reported shortly before the birds began to fall from the sky," the commission's statement said, adding that blackbirds seldom fly at night.

"The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level" to avoid explosions above, according to Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. "Blackbirds have poor eyesight, and they started colliding with things."

Another theory was that severe weather such as lightning accounted for the load noises but this was discounted because the violent weather had already left the area.

"We're leaning more toward a stress event," Arkansas Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens said.

The commission also is trying to determine what caused the deaths of up to 100,000 fish over a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near a dam in Ozark , 125 miles west of Beebe. The fish were discovered on Dec. 30.

Stephens said the commission expects results on the fish tests in probably a month. Disease may be the culprit, since almost all the fish were one species — bottom-feeding drum, Stephens said.

Stephens said the events do not appear to be related. Both that section of the river and the air at the site of the bird deaths were tested for toxins, Stephens said.

Residents of Beebe, a community of 5,000 northeast of Little Rock, told how dead birds ended up"littering the streets, the yards, the driveways, everywhere."

"It was hard to drive down the street in some places without running over them," said Robby King, a county wildlife officer in Beebe.

With the birds, a few stunned ones survived their fall and stumbled around like drunken revelers. There was little light across the countryside at the time, save for the glimmer of fireworks and some lightning on the horizon. In the tumult, many birds probably lost their bearings.

"I turn and look across my yard, and there's all these lumps," said Shane Roberts, who thought hail was falling until he saw a dazed blackbird beneath his truck. His 16-year-old daughter, Alex, spent Saturday morning picking them up. "Their legs are really squishy," the teen said.

Apocalypse

For some people, the scene unfolding shortly before midnight evoked images of the apocalypse and cut short New Year's celebrations. Many families phoned police instead of popping champagne.

"I think the switchboard lit up pretty good," said Beebe police Capt. Eddie Cullum. "For all the doomsdayers, that was definitely the end of the world."

Paul Duke filled three five-gallon buckets with dead birds on New Year's Day. "They were on the roof of the house, in the yard, on the sidewalks, in the street," said Duke, a suspension supervisor at a nearby school. A few dead birds still littered town streets Monday.

The birds will not be missed. Large roosts like the one at Beebe can have thousands of birds that leave ankle- to knee-deep piles of droppings in places. On Monday, a few live birds chirped and hopped from tree to tree behind the Roberts' home.

"The whole sky turns black every morning and every night," Roberts said.

At Duke's home, bird feeders stood empty. He fills them when bluebirds come in the summer but leaves them empty during blackbird season.

"They'd eat 50 pounds of feed a day," he said. "You couldn't keep them full."

Red-winged blackbirds are the among North America's most abundant birds, with somewhere between 100 million and 200 million nationwide, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. Thousands can roost in one tree.

The Game and Fish Commission shipped carcasses to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Researchers at the University of Georgia's wildlife disease study group also asked for a set of birds. Test results could be back in a week.

A few grackles and a couple of starlings were also among the dead. Those species roost with blackbirds, particularly in winter.

The area where the birds fell is too large to determine if any specific blast rousted the birds, Police Chief Wayne Ballew said.

"It was New Year's Eve night. Everybody and their brother was shooting fireworks," Ballew said. The city allows fireworks only on New Year's Eve and Independence Day.

'Fresh snack'

Bad weather was to blame for earlier bird kills in Arkansas.

In 2001, lightning killed dozens of mallards at Hot Springs, and a flock of dead pelicans was found in the woods about 10 years ago, Rowe said. Lab tests showed that they, too, had been hit by lighting.

In 1973, hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Ark., on the day before hunting season. Some of the birds were caught in a violent storm's updrafts and became encased in ice before falling from the sky. Some were described as bowling balls with feathers.

Earlier Friday, a tornado killed three people in Cincinnati, Ark., about 150 miles away, but most of the bad weather was already past Beebe when the birds died.

Rowe initially said poisoning was possible, but unlikely. Birds of prey and other animals, including dogs and cats, ate several of the dead birds and suffered no ill effects.

"Every dog and cat in the neighborhood that night was able to get a fresh snack," Rowe said.

But David Lyons, the head of a local chapter of the Sierra Club, told msnbc.com that he was "waiting for the results of the pathology and toxicology tests before I make any judgments about the bird and fish kills.

"So far, the evidence does not suggest that pollution contributed to either the bird or fish kill," he added. "If the test results indicate that contaminants were responsible, then local environmental groups will likely have several questions and concerns about the two events."