Credit: By Keith Kissel – http://flickr.com/photos/74419347@N00/107382056This file has been extracted from another file: June odd-eyed-cat.jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18523021

Ever since I wrote a Q&A on pets and coronavirus a few weeks ago, I’ve gotten a lot of emails (and some tweets) from concerned pet owners. They want to know whether their pets can get the new virus, SARS-CoV-2, and whether there’s any chance they can pass it on to humans.

The short answer is: it’s very unlikely. There is currently no scientific evidence that pets can pass COVID-19 to people, and very little evidence that cats and dogs can become infected with the coronavirus.

Here’s what we know so far: Two dogs (both in Hong Kong) and one cat (in Belgium) have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. All lived–or had close contact–with covid-positive humans, so experts suspect they got the virus from people. And this week, researchers showed that cats could become infected with SARS-CoV-2 and pass it on to other cats–but the research was done in artificial laboratory conditions, and experts are skeptical it would translate to the real world.

Given that there are hundreds of millions of cats and dogs in the world, there is no evidence so far that human-to-pet transmission is a widespread problem. And there is zero evidence that pets can transmit the virus to people. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies say the same.

At the same time, veterinarians want more information. Several labs have developed tests that could determine if a dog or a cat was infected, but none are in widespread use because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has recommended against it. Experts also say that–given the scale of the human problem and the lack of evidence on the pet side–the focus of testing right now should be on people.

All of this could change if more evidence comes out that pets can become infected or transmit the virus. But, for now, “It’s really important that people don’t panic,” as the CDC told me. And DON’T ABANDON YOUR PETS. In these scary and isolating times, they need you–and you need them–more than ever.

Credit: Schmidti333 / Wikimedia Commons

The new coronavirus outbreak is now a pandemic. But many questions remain about how the virus spreads and the best way to combat it. Pet owners have questions too. Can we pass the new coronavirus to our cats and dogs? Can pets serve as a reservoir of the virus and pass it back to us? Should we quarantine our pets too?

Yesterday, I chatted with with Shelley Rankin, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, Philadelphia, about these and other pressing queries.  You can find the full interview here, including advice on what we should be doing right now to protect our pets.

If you have any experiences or advice, please share them in the comments!

Ancient burial of woman and dog. (Credit: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China)

Dogs and cats are the most popular pets in the world. There are more than 200 million of them in the U.S. alone, and hundreds of millions more across the globe. And, as I write in my book, Citizen Canine, they are the most valued animals on Earth. We spend more money on them and are more emotionally invested in them than any other animal. We haven’t just welcomed them into our hearts and homes–we’ve made them fellow members of our society.

Our relationship with cats and dogs is so strong, in fact, that it’s likely to show up in the archaeological record. That’s one of the take-homes of a new study published in Anthropocene. Millions of years from now, researchers argue, it will be clear to future archaeologists–or perhaps visiting aliens–that we valued dogs and cats over all other animals. As we reported in a Q&A at Science with the study authors:

What do you think future archaeologists will make of our relationship with cats and dogs, based on what they see in the fossil record?

Karen Koy: Of all the animals, dogs and cats are more likely to be buried in a manner similar to people. There are pet cemeteries that are set up similar to human memorial parks. So if anything like that is stumbled upon, that’s going to say something different than a pit that people threw a bunch of pigs into randomly. I think it’s going to be obvious that we felt differently about dogs and cats versus pigs and cows and chickens.

Roy Plotnick: Will they think we worshipped them? I have no idea. Religious explanations seem to be a stock answer, but hopefully future researchers are more sophisticated than that.

Jezebel chills out at the beach house

We’ve done about everything someone can do for their cats. We’ve pampered them. We’ve given them the best veterinary care money can buy. We even take them on walks. But we’ve never taken them on vacation–until now.

Our cats, Jasper and Jezebel, are 14 years old. And although they’re well-traveled–we’ve been taking them on a 1.5-hour trip to my in-laws in Delaware ever since they were kittens–we’ve never brought them on vacation. I figured they would hate it, or at the very least be stressed out by being in a strange new place.

But we were pleasantly surprised this summer, when not only were were able to take Jasper and Jezebel on a beach vacation, but that they actually enjoyed it. You can read all about our adventures in my latest story for The Washington Post.

And please let me know in the comments if you’ve had your own experience vacationing with your cat!

Earlier this month, I was honored to be hosted by the Yale Law School to discuss my 2018 feature story, Are Happy Lab Animals Better for Science? The basic question: Does enriching the lives of mice, rabbits, and other lab animals–with toys, companions, and more stimulating environments–not only improve their welfare, but improve the research itself? Some argue that the more we treat lab animals like people, the more likely we are to develop therapies that actually work on people. But others worry about the cost and utility of such an approach.

For the discussion, I was joined by some of the top thinkers in this field, including Yale University Professor of Comparative Medicine Caroline Zeiss, Purdue University Professor of Animal Welfare Brianna Gaskill, and Oregon Health & Science University Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience Garet Lahvis. We had a great conversation, and had some great questions from the audience.

Here’s the video from the event:

Are Happy Lab Animals Better for Science? from Yale Law School on Vimeo.

Me and Jasper, circa 2005.

Today, I published an op-ed in the New York Times about the need to let our cats outdoors. Cats “have not evolved to slumber in living our living rooms,” I write. “Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.” (Here’s me on Cheddar TV talking more about it.)

Yet taking your cat outdoors is a risk for your cat and for wildlife as well. My compromise: Let’s walk our cats like we walk our dogs. Not on leashes, necessarily, (though I’ve certainly done that), but in a responsible way that protects both them and the world around them. As I write, “We don’t let our dogs wander unsupervised or destroy whatever they want. We should exercise the same responsibility with our cats.”

If you’re ready to give it a try, here’s what you’ll need:

A collar/harness: When you bring a cat outside, there’s always the small chance he’s going to get lost. Your cat should at least have a microchip and a collar or harness that contains a name tag and phone number. We’ve been using harnesses with Jasper and Jezebel for the entire thirteen years we’ve been walking them, because we used to walk them on leashes, and it’s much easier to control a cat with a leash attached to a harness than to a collar. A harness also allows you to add other accoutrements like a tracker and a light (more on those below). They sell walking harnesses for cats, though we still use harnesses made for small dogs. We use this type of Lupine harness for Jasper and Jezebel.

A leash: Chances are you won’t be walking your cat on a leash. Cats don’t walk like dogs, and if yours decides to dive into a bush or slink under a car, you’re going to end up twisting yourself into a pretzel to unhook him. Still, I try to have a leash on hand–we use an older version of this Flexi model–in case I want to bring one of our cats home without picking them up, or if I’m trying to find a safe way to extricate one of them from a catfight. For some reason, Jasper goes on autopilot as soon as I connect his leash, and almost immediately starts making his way home. (Jezebel needs a bit more convincing.) If your cat is uncooperative with the leash, don’t drag him. I find that a few soft yanks typically gets them going in the right direction.

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