Please don’t “Niman Bash” me. I thought this is worthy of a read.
Recombinomics Commentary February 14, 2006
In an unpublished study carried out last year by the National Institute of Animal Health in Bangkok, researchers led by virologist Sudarat Damrongwatanapokin tested 629 village dogs and 111 cats in the Suphan Buri district of central Thailand. Out of these, 160 dogs and 8 cats had antibodies to H5N1, indicating that they were infected with the virus or had been infected in the past.
The above comments on H5N1 in dogs and cats are not a surprise. H5N1 has been isolated from fatal infections of leopards and tigers in Thai zoos. H5N1 has also been isolated from a domestic cat and has been experimentally transmitted in laboratory cats.
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http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02140601/H5N1_Dogs_Cats.html
Everybody PLEASE include your pets in your preparedness plans! They will need to be protected from this virus in the same way that your children and the elderly need to be protected. They are dependent upon you for their lives. Use the wiki search and type in pets to lead to the many resources available on this topic. I don’t want to leave this thread to get the URL as the wiki is running slow right now, but go to the website of the Humane Society of the United States, and in their disaster preparedness section you will find downloadable information about how to protect your pets (small and large animals) from disasters of all varieties.
This was ment a comentary on the “H51N in the US” tread.. Its about cats so i dont mess up the viro debate with catfights..
please folks! If cats was easy transmitting this to people from small birds, don´t you think the numbers in asia, tyrkia, and now parts of europe would be bigger? if there is not much contact between water-birds and small ones (like when stupid people feed them) the chance is incredible low.. There are after all a number of dangers in the world that is deal-able, making H5N1 in birds one of them.
Correct me on this. I have a cat, it will also stay indoors (we just got it from a cat-home and he still haven’t been outside,) the plan was to let him out now, but then the shit popped up in the eastern sea. So now I walt. I know that my government will take samples from different bird types to monitor the spread, and if I don´t hear any (and I will mail them..) about small birds, I will let the cat outside…. Its then just another very small risk to deal with in the life..
H5N1 will stay in birds forever I think.. Making a immunization (a pandemic / vaccine) the only final solution. question is how long will it take….
Given the situation, perhaps it might be prudent to not let your cat outside ever. Though the years I found that cats who stay indoors are content. Once they’ve established an outside territory they become discontented. Get a nice, big climbing post with lots of cubbies, an indoor sprout garden to munch on, and a bed in a sunny window.
I don’t think things are going to get better outside for quite a while. And, you don’t want some nutcase to kill your cat out of fear of H5N1 as things ramp up.
Just a suggestion…
I have a question (and request) re disaster preps for pets. I’ve been wondering since 9/11 and just haven’t gotten around to asking anyone. For a “go pack” store of pet food, is there some calorie-dense, efficiently packed, volume-minimal product? I have 2 boxers, 55lbs and 72lbs. Two weeks of kibble ain’t gonna fit unless I don’t take anything else - which is probably exactly what I’d do if pressed. Seems like this would be something we could use w/o risking too much upset. Minimal kibble plus jarred baby food meats maybe? A hi-stress, hi-cal dry food would sure be great.
For a calorie-dense dog food I strongly, passionately recommend INNOVA EVO by Natura Pet Products: www.naturapet.com. Made in the USA, all natural, and no grain (all protein and vegetable). It’s so calorie-dense that you need to feed much less than you would normal kibble. It’s touted as the more evolutionary correct diet for canines. Don’t know if they make a cat version…haven’t actually been to their website. My vet recommended it. It’s what she feeds her dogs.
My dogs go mad over it. I use it to supplement a mostly home-made diet I feed.
I just went to the naturapet website and, yes, they make an EVO cat food. And, it appears they also have canned versions of both (didn’t know that before). Hope you give it a try, panflu or not.
beans - I can only speak for cats. We have fed raw for a long time, combined with high quality kibble. I discovered a dry food called Innova evo for them which has no grains in it. The love this kibble, won’t touch anything else plus they eat half, literally half of what they used to eat. (I have no commercial connection to them, just buy their cat foods). It is slightly more expensive if you compare bag vs bag but saves in the long run because they eat way less quantity.
Unfortunatly for preps it is doubtful our cats will continue to get raw so we are storing cans to replace that aspect of their dietary needs.
For dogs, having a good quality doggie vite on hand will help make up for dry kibbles that may not be the best quality (cat/dog/farm feeds is our TSHTF shopping as I don’t expect a lot of people will be saying OMG, I need some meow mix as much as they will be going to costco for minute rice and some canned spam-we are prepping now but that will be our main fill the F150 shopping). Also canned dog foods tend to be smaller and easier to store around the house if you can’t fit in 10 bags of kibble so you may want to partially adjust their diets now to include canned. Oh and one more thing, nutrical is a great high calorie supplement that both cats and dogs can use. I have some in my preps for emergencies as well but not as a food replacement.
HTH’s
LOL you beat me to it Anastasia!
MomInBC: We are kindred souls…
Not to introduce a somber note, but if your pet dies of old age during a pandemic, you now have a large supply of unused nutrients that are available to supplement your personal stores, if need be. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to taste-test your likely pet food before you get in large stockpiles of it.
Med. Mav.-Your first sentence had me thinking you were suggesting pet consumption. LOL
LOL, me too. Come here girl, daddy has a treat for you…wack!…um um good
Wow! That was a boner!
No, I meant to say-
Bow Wow! That was a boner!
Med. Mav. Maybe you should start a new recipe thread for - “Cooking with Alpo”, and don’t bury ‘em when you can make, “German Shepherd Pie” and “Schnookums Shish-ka-bobs”.
NJ Preppie: Tell that to a Korean. A few years ago I was in Moran outside of Seoul, and there was the cutest bunch of little “Ole Yeller” type dogs penned-up, ready- for-sale. There was a long line of pens, a city-block long. And they weren’t for the kids. Different strokes for different folks.
I found at petco a doggie pack that I can put on the back of my lab so she can carry her own food and water out. I also got the pet “boots” to keep her from walking on glass in an earthquake. My friend in New Orleans said pet boots were the item she wanted most at the time they were hiking out with her dogs.
Now the boots could be put on her feet and santized afterward so she can potty outside with H5N1 birds living overhead.
When I was in Thailand, I was eating from the street vendors. It may have been dog or something else. If you can cook it I’ll eat it. I do draw the line at soylent green though.
I KNEW I should have included more detail for this crowd. I already feed Nutro Natural lamb and rice kibble plus minimal amounts of Nutro canned. Between the 2, they go thru about 8 lbs./wk. I guess what I’m looking for is an even higher density kibble w good shelf life (commercial interests - take note! Smaller unit packaging for emergency kibble). I guess I could call the Nutro nutrition section and pick a few brains. I was hoping someone made the dry equivalent of the special canned some upscale companies make for vet use in recovery from prolonged or extreme stress (post-surgical anorexia e.g.). Maybe I’ll just buy lots ands lots of jarred, strained liver, beef and lamb, perhaps a couple of jars of wheatgerm and powdered garlic and some good fish oil supplements and multivitamins. Thanks, everyone.
Beans: The Innova EVO is very different than their lamb & rice. It is very nutrient and colorie dense….waaaaay more. Crude Protein 42%, Fat 22%. Calorie Content per 4.40 oz cup: 537 kcal/cup. Compare that to the lamb and you’ll see what everyone’s raving about.
I sometimes supplement with Wysong canned meats: they have lamb/beef/vennison/chicken/turkey/duck (American sources) It would be better than baby food. It is the meat/organs/bones all cooked up real creamy and is now fortified with animal blood plasma (the plasma, not the blood) for extra nourishment. I called the company when they started doing this and they said it was to help boost their immune systems.
Worried in the City, be sure to give your dog some practice at wearing the boots. First time I put them on my dog, he laid on the floor looking at me pitifully, like I’d cut all his feet off. When I finally coaxed him up, he was truly a high-stepper, lifting each paw about a foot in the air. Also be aware that many of the boots cans be SLICK on a smooth surface… if he gets to running thru the house with them on, he will slide across the hardwood floor into the wall with a big thud.
Also, be sure to get a few of the cheapie collapsible dog bowls, useful both for the dog and for you.
http://tinyurl.com/eq4ft Meanwhile, panic has gripped Ramgarh town after a large number of chickens were found dead at Bhurkunda and two dogs reportedly died when they ate the dead chickens.
see second page
anon at 20:23: I have dog snow boots for my Beagle. He’s a sissy about snow and they work great to keep snow from packing between his paws. Duh, I didn’t think about them to keep flu from coming into the house on his feet. Thanks. They were not expensive, under $20.00 I think the manufacturer is Outward Hound.
Thanks to Worried in the City too for the dog boots idea.
First post for me, but long time watcher. Interesting news today - scientists are more worried about H5N1 in pets than in poultry or even humans. Here’s the quote from Yahoo News;
“Springtime usually brings joy to Alaska after a long winter. This year, however, it is also likely to bring the avian flu virus, carried by infected wild birds migrating from Asia. If so, the virus could spread to birds in the lower 48 states in a matter of months.
At that point, the population that most worries the world’s infectious disease trackers is not so much the nation’s human population — the virus has yet to evolve into a form that easily infects humans. It is not even domestic poultry, since most U.S. commercial bird flocks are sealed away in covered buildings, never coming in contact with wild birds.
What keeps some scientists up at night is the 75 million household cats, plus the 40 to 60 million feral cats roaming the countryside, some of which are sure to eat infected birds. “If it gets into cats in this country it will spread like crazy,” warns Larry Glickman, a professor of epidemiology at Purdue University School of Veterinarian Medicine. “Many of these cats sleep in bed with their owners. The potential that they could spread it to humans is very large.”
Anyone have any thoughts on what we should do with pets when this is found in wild birds next month (most likely) in the US? I’m not sure how I am going to be able to keep a cat and a dog in the house when they are used to being out every day.
I would suggest that you get them used to staying indoors now. Only take you dog out on a lead. Cats you can’t really do that with, so they’re safer indoors. I think the main concern right now is if they have the opportunity to eat infected birds. Good luck!
you’d be surprised what you can get a cat used to doing, after all you can train them to use a human toilet. My old orange tabby was originally more sheltered, but then I got a dog (puppy) as I walked the dog..so too Clark Kent, (the cat) insisted on being walked. Yes on a leash
moeb, can you really? That’s so cool! I had never heard of that before (either the toilet or the leash). I grew up with quite a few cats (love them) but can’t have any now as my hubby and son both have allergies to them. I retract my earlier statement regarding cats on leashes in that case. I guess it’s best not to have too many assumptions- dedicated pet owners and wonderful animals are both full of suprises!
MaMa & moeb; Good insight and advice, thank you. I guess now is a good time to start trying to change their behavior!
My girls actually take their rabbits out on harness leashes and walk them around. The rabbits seem to enjoy it. I don’t think they enjoy the baby stroller rides dressed up in little doll clothes though! We’ve been training our three week old cockatiel to a harness as well. Boy, does that sound funny when we’re all talking about BF ?! My daughter and I have an understanding that if it looks like keeping a bird indoors could become dangerous, it goes back to our friend that raises them. She was not happy with the agreement, but I refuse to endanger the girls if I can help it. Does anyone see this as being dangerous by having a bird indoors? I would imagine if this gets here and goes airborne, it could be? but I’m not sure—maybe nobody is yet :(
Beans: Also possible to supplement pet’s foods with some of yours in a real pinch. For example mixing cooked rice with canned dogfood- not ideal,but a temp measure if it comes to it- better than them being hungry. Definitely not for long term nutrition!
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