Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats (38 page)

If your cat has developed a habit of clawing or biting at you, you can break it fairly easily by consistently following a method described by Anitra Frazier in her book
The New Natural Cat
. If the claws are in you, relax and calmly disengage them by first pushing the feet a bit forward. To get out of a bite grip, relax and press your arm or hand
toward
the teeth (which confuses the cat). Then put the cat away from you with a gentle but firm message of disapproval and disappointment. To underline the message, ignore her for several minutes. Don’t even look at her. A few repetitions are usually all that is needed for a cat to learn that if she wants to play with you, it’s not acceptable to claw and bite. Thereafter, she will respect your wishes.

T
HE
F
IRST
V
ET
V
ISIT

Regardless of whether you let your cat outdoors or keep it inside, you need to teach it to accept a carrier. A few days before your cat’s first visit to the veterinarian, place an open carrier out in the house. Encourage the cat to view it as a fun place to explore. To entice him further, place a tidbit inside. Without this familiarity, you could have a battle on your hands trying to shove a resistant cat into a cage on your way out the door to the vet’s.

To avoid more serious contact with cat teeth and claws, which are quite sharp, never try to hold on to a cat that wants to be free (unless you are trained in handling cats properly). Teach children this point, too. If
you must restrain a cat to give it medicine, wrap it firmly in a towel or blanket. To transport it, use an animal carrier. (I know of more than one serious accident caused by a frightened cat bounding loose in a moving car.)

C
AT
A
GGRESSION

A few cats have a more deep-seated problem with aggression. I’m talking about cats that are completely, violently intolerant of all other cats, even their own adult offspring. And once in a while, I’ve treated cats that are pretty nasty to their caretakers, too. Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that many of these problems are more rooted in the constitutional makeup of certain cats than in situations.

Chronic disease can also play a role in such behavior problems. In many cases, careful, individualized homeopathic treatment has helped. Cats that are unusually timid or aloof for no apparent reason have also responded to this treatment.

GOOD SANITATION: A BASIC NECESSITY

Sanitation is an important issue for both dogs and cats; it’s right at the top of the initial training agenda.

For puppies, the most painless housebreaking takes advantage of two things: a pup’s natural cleanliness and the regularity of his bowels. Well-socialized pups go outside of their own den to soil. It’s not reasonable to expect a young puppy to understand that your whole house is his den.

When mistakes are made in the house, a pup has usually run into another room (outside the den to him) to go. So set your pup up for success. For his first few weeks, confine him to a crate or very small room in the house at all times when you’re not directly involved in playing with or watching him. Feed him on a regular schedule and take him outside a few minutes after each meal and nap. When you put him outside to relieve himself, go with him to make sure that he goes. Praise him when he does. Afterward, let him run around a bit indoors. Then put him back in his crate or room to sleep. Gradually, expand the size of the area you designate as his den—include uncarpeted areas first, just in case he makes a mistake. If he does, don’t scare him and don’t punish him, just take him outside. Then back up your training a day or two and shrink the size of the area he can roam in until he’s doing well again.

If you have to work all day, you may need to have someone else come in to let him out, or else train him to use papers when he’s young and then switch to outside only as he becomes able to hold his bowels longer. Don’t expect a young pup to be able to go more than four to six hours at most without a pit stop. Do keep him confined to a small area while you’re gone. For a young pup, this space should be at least the size of a large dog’s kennel and no bigger than a very small kitchen.

Animals instinctively seek to relieve
themselves away from their own living area, which is why the neighbor’s yard is often a favorite bathroom. You can wean a dog away from this habit and save a major part of your own lawn, too, by teaching him to use just a certain portion of your yard, such as behind the garage or near certain shrubs. Place some of his stool there and take him to that spot when it’s time for him to answer nature’s call. When he uses the spot, praise him enthusiastically. Placing some kind of low border around the area can help to make its limits clear to him and to friends and family.

When you’re walking your dog on stormy days or in cold weather, you naturally want him to do his business A.S.A.P. Some people choose to associate command words like “hurry up” with the act of defecating or urinating. This may sound funny, but it can be very useful. On cold or rainy days, this command can actually encourage your dog to go.

To discourage defecation in certain areas of the yard or garden, promptly remove droppings from areas you don’t want the dog to soil. If necessary, spray those areas with a dog-repelling deodorant made with natural ingredients like citron, lemon oil, eucalyptol, geranium oil, capsicum, and oil of lavender.

Dispose of accumulated pet wastes regularly. Though I don’t recommend composting them because temperatures may not be high enough (140°F) to kill harmful organisms, you might consider using a small mechanism made especially for dog and cat wastes, known as the Doggie Dooley. Buried in the ground, it works like a small septic tank.

Both the danger of spreading disease and simple common decency dictate that you clean up any solid wastes your dog may deposit on someone’s lawn or in public places. Various types of scoop gadgets make it convenient to pick up and dispose of droppings. Though it may not be the most pleasing chore in the world, it certainly won’t be any better for the person down the street. If you think of animal wastes in the same category as human wastes, it makes your responsibility for cleanup much clearer.

For cats it’s usually a simpler matter. Just provide a full, clean box of litter. Cats prefer litter of a sandy, granular type. Keep it clean and keep it in the same place. Too much odor or too much change could put your cat off. Keep a clean litter box in your yard as well as in your house, and the cat will have something else to use besides Mrs. Jones’s flowerbed. Keep the boxes out of reach of toddlers and clean them regularly. Wash your hands well afterward, because cat feces can carry potentially harmful organisms. (This is a good practice to follow after a dog cleanup, too.)

UNDERSTANDING AND PREVENTING ANIMAL/HUMAN DISEASES

A vital aspect of responsible pet care is working to prevent the spread of disease
from pets to humans. Many public health authorities see these diseases as a serious problem. The most effective measure is prevention—through careful sanitation practices, avoiding bites and scratches, and keeping your pet healthy. Reasonable precautions will minimize the spread of disease.

Most diseases picked up from cats and dogs fall into three groups, depending on their means of transmission—through feces or urine, skin and hair contact, or bites and scratches.. Let’s consider each group individually.

D
ISEASES
T
RANSMITTED
IN
W
ASTES

Roundworms
(
Toxocara canis, Toxocara
cati
): The infectious form of these worms is their eggs, which can incubate for several weeks in the ground where an animal has defecated. If a child plays there and puts his dirty hands in his mouth, he can swallow the eggs and become infected. Thus, migrating animal roundworms are most often seen in toddlers. The disease is only rarely fatal. More commonly, it is mild and hardly noticeable at all in adults. Children are more likely to be contaminated and will have more problems than adults. When children swallow these common parasites carried by dogs and cats, the parasites often migrate through the body tissues and cause damage, including liver enlargement and fever. These symptoms may last as long as a year. In some children the larvae may enter the eye and cause inflammation. This is serious business, since surgeons have been known to mistake the eye lesions for early cancer and unnecessarily remove an eye. There is also some research that suggests that some children may become allergic to the migrating parasites, which complicates the situation.

Hookworms
(
Cutaneous larva migrans
): These parasites are similar to roundworms, but they enter the body differently. Instead of being swallowed, the hookworm larvae directly penetrate the skin where it comes in contact with feces-contaminated soil or sand—usually the bare feet. Though the parasites try their best, they are not really suited to living in people and eventually die after moving several inches under the skin. The inflammation is called creeping eruption and eventually ends after several weeks or months. In the United States, it is most often seen in the South.

Leptospirosis:
Swimming in or otherwise coming in contact with water contaminated with animal urine is the way this serious bacterial disease is usually acquired. Many animals can carry it, particularly rats. Pets can catch it by drinking contaminated surface water (or licking it off their fur) or by eating food on which rats have urinated. In humans the disease is similar to flu, with fever, headache, chills, tiredness, vomiting, and muscular aches. In addition, the eyes and the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord can be inflamed. In some cases, the
liver and the kidneys are damaged. Few die from this condition, but it can make you miserably sick for two or three weeks.

Tapeworms
(
Dipylidium caninum
): Tapeworms are a different type of worm, in that they cannot directly infect people with their eggs. Rather they go into some other creature first, end up in the muscle tissue, and then infect the human intestines when these animals are eaten.

Pets can pick up the common tapeworm by biting at and swallowing fleas or eating gophers, which can carry the infectious form. Children can get tapeworms either by ingesting fleas while nuzzling the pet’s fur or being licked on the mouth by an animal with a flea on its tongue. Human infestation is rare, however, compared with infestations of other types of tapeworms we can get from eating undercooked, infected beef or pork.

Toxoplasmosis:
Many people are exposed to this infectious disease through ordinary activity and develop a natural resistance to it. On rare occasions, however, it has killed adults. More often, it causes birth deformities in children born to women who were infected during pregnancy and had not previously developed immunity. It can be picked up by contact with feces from an infected cat or contact with contaminated soil. Also, the disease can come from eating raw or undercooked meat. Because the fetus of a pregnant woman can be very vulnerable, this problem is covered in detail under
Toxoplasmosis
.

Prevention of Diseases Transmitted in Wastes

Besides cleaning up your pet’s droppings, there are a few simple precautions you should take and should teach to your children.

• Wash your hands after contact with soil where an animal may have relieved itself.
  
• Avoid going barefoot in areas where an animal may have relieved itself, particularly in warm climates, where hookworms flourish.
  
• Remind children to wash their hands before eating and not to put their hands in their mouths while playing with animals or on potentially contaminated grounds. Teach them all other precautions as well.
  
• If your dog has gone swimming or wading in a pond or creek that could be harboring leptospirosis, give it a bath.
  

D
ISEASES
FROM
S
KIN
AND
H
AIR
C
ONTACT

Fleas:
Though fleas prefer feasting on pets, they will make a meal of people if the opportunity appears. Flea infestation is often at its worst in a house that was formerly occupied by an animal and then left vacant. Many young fleas, recently hatched, will be eager to eat.

Ringworm
(
Microsporum canis
): Caused by a fungus that eats skin and hair, ringworm often shows up in humans as scaly, red areas.
As the organism grows, it spreads outward in a circle, much as a ripple forms when a stone is dropped into a pond. In dogs, affected areas tend to be hairless, thickened, scabby, and irritated. They are typically disk-shaped and about an inch or more in diameter. But most ringworm transmitted by pets comes from cats, who tend to show very few observable symptoms (dogs can also carry the spores without showing visible signs). An infected cat may have hairless gray areas without inflammation or scabbing. Generally, the animal doesn’t itch either.

Children are more susceptible to ringworm than adults, though humans can get it at any age. The disease is on the rise and is now the most common fungal disease reported.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever
(
Rickettsia
rickettsii
): While usually not fatal to humans (it is commonly treated with antibiotics), this infectious disease can still make a person mighty sick. Starting suddenly with fever, headache, chills, and reddening of the eyes, it may last several weeks. In the eastern and central United States the responsible organisms are carried by the dog tick (
Dermacentor
variabilis
). In the west they are borne by the wood tick (
Dermacentor andersoni
). Incidence of the disease has risen sharply in North America in recent times.