Photo by Allison Benedikt When I first met Velvel, he was peeking out from a cardboard box in the back seat of my boyfriend’s Saturn wagon. I was just back from a weekend away, and John had come to pick me up from the train station with the best surprise a man can give to a woman he loves: a puppy.Man, I loved this puppy. A border collie–American Eskimo mix (basically a shrunken border collie, but cuter), we named him after my dad’s Hebrew name, which is actually Yiddish and means “wolf,” though we didn’t know that at the time. He just looked like a “Velvel.” You know what I mean. (We get a lot of: “Volvo?” Do you think we’d name our dog Vulva? Velvel quickly became the center of our lives. Weekends consisted of taking him to the dog run or the dog beach or the dog park. I developed a very specific, high-pitched, raunchy voice for Velvel, because he had a lot to say. Remember when there was that big dog food scare? We freaked and started spending Sundays cooking huge batches of homemade dog food that filled our apartment with the disgusting aroma of chicken livers, broccoli, and bone meal.
Velvel watched TV on the couch with us every night and slept on our bed. Sometimes I let him sit in the front passenger seat of the car and I took the back. We had a multistep system for brushing him out, which we did regularly and with discipline. We gossiped about the other dogs in our neighborhood and marveled at what a better and cuter and smarter dog Velvel was compared to them. Then I got pregnant. Actually, pregnancy was fine. I still loved Velvel when I was pregnant. The night before I was to be induced, I thought more about how bringing a baby home was going to impact Velvel’s life than my own. “This is going to be very hard for him,” I told John. We’d have to be sensitive to his needs, we agreed. After the baby was born, we did exactly what “they” say to do: John took the newborn hat from the hospital for Velvel to smell, to prepare him for the tiny human heading his way. That was probably the last nice thing we ever did for him. A friend of mine once told me that before he had a kid, he would have run into a burning building to save his cats.
Now that he has a kid, he would happily drown the cats in the bathtub if it would help his son take a longer nap. Here is how I feel about that statement: Velvel, avoid the bathroom. It’s not that I don’t love my dog. It’s just that I don’t love my dog. And I am not alone. A very nonscientific survey of almost everyone I know who had a dog and then had kids now wishes they had never got the dog. This is a near universal truth, even for parents with just one child, though I have more. Here is a regular sequence of events at my house: I pick the baby up and he pukes on me. I run from the living room to the kitchen with the baby in one arm, trying not to touch his milk-dripping mouth to the left side of my shirt while I grab a paper towel to wipe off the milk-covered right side of my shirt, when I hear the sound of exactly 2,459 tiny fucking Legos crashing to the floor. My middle son has dumped out the Lego bin again. And my eldest (who is now 4) is yelling “ready for wipe!” from the bathroom.
I think, “I’ve got to start trusting that kid to wipe himself,” just as the middle son, who is now sitting in a sea of Legos smearing Desitin all over his face, screams: “Velvel threw up!” Don’t get the wrong idea: My life is not boring. There are variations to this lineup. Sometimes Velvel just whines. (I’m no dog whisperer, but this might be because he’s not getting any attention.) Other times I take him for a walk—it’s such a nice night for a stroll! You actually are a pretty good dog, Vel!—only to have him poop on himself. Like, he poops, and some of that poop gets stuck on his fur. Before we had kids, this was at least an occasion to give him a nice, calming sponge bath. Some warm water, a wash cloth, and soap would do the trick. Now I grab a pair of scissors and hack off a clump of his hair. Did I mention he sheds? This is not his fault, exactly. But who else to blame when the new baby is covered in dog hair, or the older kids are making gagging noises while watching Jake and the Never Land Pirates because “there’s something in my mouth.”
There’s also all the other stuff, like having to walk him every day, and the fact that he loves to start a manic barking fit just as one of the kids is about to fall asleep. (We bought one of those collars that shoots “a harmless burst” of citronella at his face every time he barks. It worked for two days.) Recently I took Velvel for his annual checkup. He’s 13, does not get enough (any) exercise, and has gained a fair amount of weight in the past few years, as we’ve started doling out the dog treats quite liberally because it’s the only thing that shuts him up. The vet ran some blood tests and called with the results a few days later. Velvel’s liver levels are a little off, she told me, but why don’t we try medicine first before discussing other options. The vet delivered the news gently, as if I might start sobbing at any moment. All I could think was, “I can’t remember if she said liver or kidney.” And then the baby spit up and I had to go. There are many lessons I’ve learned from my parents, but one in particular I wish I had followed.
They didn’t get a dog until my sister and I were grown. They loved him like a dog should be loved until the day he died. He never got less cute to them. I never heard them yell, “GOD WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS UNDER FOOT?” They never regretted him. I cannot in good conscience tell you every thing I think on the subject of my dog Velvel. I can only say this: To all you young couples, thinking, “We should get a dog!” “I love you, let’s get a dog!” “We’re not ready for kids, but what about a dog?!”—don’t get a dog. Or, if you do get a dog, don’t have kids.Have your sayDo you let your pets sleep on the bed? You wake up in the middle of the night face to whiskers with Spot the spoodle. Aside from the deathly dog breath, could such close contact be a health risk?Well, according to public and veterinary health expert Dr Jane Heller (PhD) of Charles Sturt University, NSW, any close contact with your pet carries some risk of infection. "Pets are not sterile... so there is always some chance of bacterial or parasitic transfer from companion animals to humans.
And clearly those risks are greater if you are sleeping in, or generally closely sharing, the same environment as your animal," she says.However, as long as you and your furry friend are both healthy, and your pet is treated regularly for worms and fleas, even close contact is rarely a problem.Very few studies have actually looked at the risk of zoonoses (diseases that spread between animals and humans) in Australian homes.But Heller says overall the risk of catching a disease from your pet is very low and likely to be contained to the aforementioned bacteria and parasites living in and on your pet – viruses are not so much of an issue. The bacteria you could pick up from your pets fall into two main categories – those ingested by your pets and those already living in or on them. The first category includes some of the nastier bugs such as Salmonella and Campylobacter. These do not usually cause illness in your pets (although they may), but will be shed in their faeces and can cause quite severe gastro-type illness in humans.
Heller explains that these organisms may enter your pet's digestive system when they eat raw meat like chicken necks and bones."[Raw meat] is good for their teeth and they love it, but recent Canadian research demonstrated a strong association between feeding animals raw meat and shedding of Salmonella in the faeces," Heller says.The main risk for us occurs whenever we come into contact with animal faeces. So, making lunch for your family after a Saturday morning trip to the dog park without washing your hands, for instance, is not really a good idea.The other problematic bacteria are those that live naturally on your pets without causing them harm (called commensal bacteria), but which may cause infection or disease in humans.The most famous and troublesome example of these bugs is probably Staphylococcus.It can cause a range of illnesses in humans from skin and wound infections to pneumonia and even meningitis."We know that dogs and cats carry Staphylococcus in their noses and on their coats, and we also know that the incidence in humans of antibiotic-resistant strains [of staph] are on the rise in the community," says Heller.The major risk of us picking up these types of bacteria, or indeed passing them from humans to dogs, is likely to come from letting your pet nuzzle your eyes
, mouth and nose. "If you have open wounds or if you are immunocompromised, the risk can become more significant," adds Heller.Many people will have heard of Toxoplasma gondii, a type of parasite that can live in warm-blooded animals, particularly cats.This parasite is of importance to immunocompromised people and if a woman becomes infected with the parasite for the first time when she is pregnant, the infection can pass to the foetus potentially causing damage to the developing brain and eyes.However, as the eggs of the parasite take more than 24 hours to become infectious, providing kitty litter trays are cleaned regularly and good hygiene is maintained, Heller says the risk of contracting the parasite from your cat should be minimal.There is more risk associated with gardening or playing in sand pits where old cat faeces are more likely to be present. There is negligible risk associated with patting a cat as the eggs have not been shown to be carried on cat hair, Heller says.Pet owners should be aware of the potential for infection from other parasite eggs including: roundworm, hookworm and tapeworm, as well as ringworm, a fungal skin infection.
All of these are easily controlled by regularly worming or bathing of your animals, and even if contracted, the infections are easily eradicated in most people.And it's worth remembering that pet bites and scratches are the largest public health risk from dogs and cats.Heller suggests that pet owners should practice simple prevention, by training pets and humans how to interact with each other and taking particular care in those situations where bites or scratches could occur, such as during feed times.For the average person with a healthy immune system, the risk of getting sick from a pet is low, even if you share a bed with them and are exposed to a bacteria or parasite.However, the risk increases considerably for people with compromised or reduced immune systems. These include the very young, the very old, those with diseases such as HIV, those who are pregnant and those undergoing chemotherapy.In these cases, both the chance of catching the infection or disease is increased and the consequences of becoming sick could be much worse than for a healthy person.