When you have a pet, their health is your own, and many people find themselves falling ill after sharing their home with a furry friend. However, this does not mean that you should avoid having a pet within your home. Instead, there are many ways that you can both enjoy your pet’s company and stay healthy yourself.
Staying Healthy When You Have a Pet: A Guide
Table of Contents
Be Aware of Allergies
Three in ten people with allergies are allergic to dogs, cats, and other animals, and this can cause a large amount of distress to those that own a furry friend. Allergy symptoms can be extremely severe in some cases, such as leaving people struggling to breathe. However, there are many ways that you can combat allergies when you have a pet. For instance, you should consider getting a hypoallergenic pet, stop your pet from entering all of the rooms in your home, maintain great ventilation throughout the building, and avoid hugging your pet.
Take Them to the Vet
To stay healthy when you have a pet, you need to keep them healthy too, and this is why you should keep up regular appointments with the vet. A vet’s surgery can help your family stay healthy by giving your animal the vaccinations they need against diseases that could cause problems for your family. They can diagnose conditions that could be spread to humans, and can control fleas and ticks on your animals that could pass on diseases to you. For help with all this and more, you should head to easyvet to find an affordable and caring vet’s surgery near you.
Maintain Good Hygiene
When you share your home with a pet, you need to maintain good hygiene at all times to stay healthy. For instance, you should wash your hands after you handle them and wipe down sideboards before you prepare dinner on them. This will ensure that no diseases that your pet carries on their fur or paws manage to enter your body or your dinner. You should also be wary when you are clearing out your cat’s litter tray, as the bacteria in cat feces can cause blindness and birth defects in some rare cases. In addition to good bodily hygiene, you should make sure that you constantly clean up after your pet, especially if they have just come in from outside.
Be Careful When Handling Your Pet
However, you need to be even more careful when you are handling your pet. However, it can be a challenge not to give your pet a hug whenever you want to; kissing and hugging your pet can lead to direct transmission of disease, especially if you own amphibians and rodents, as these often carry more germs than dogs and cats. As well as not directly kissing your pet, if they scratch or bite you, you should make sure that you disinfect and clean the affected area immediately to avoid conditions like cat-scratch disease, which can lead to inflammation around the site, as well as fever.
