Pets for Young Kids: Does Exotic Mean Toxic?

Popular topic also read on WebVet

Thanks Nancy for a great article. I really care about my child’s health and safety, but I never knew our pet turtles can be a problem. A similar story I just read was on WebVet.com, which always helps me with my pet queries. They go into how doctors are warning against exotic pets for small children.

Inadequate backpedaling

In trying to figure out why this response to the overwhelmingly negative reader reaction to the "eight no-no pets" piece was so insipid, condescending to the respondents, and bootlicking to the "doctors," I eventually came to a conclusion. Health writers, even "award winning" health writers, especially if they toil for a big outfit like USNews, must accommodate the "authorities." To do otherwise means a threat to employment. A few hundred years ago it was a death sentence to assert against authority that the earth was round.

But this author is really only saying the same thing that other news authors and TV newscasters are blathering all over North America - cowtowing to these authoritative "doctors" blindly. In my experience (I'm a "doctor" too, by the way), simply being a "doctor" or simply carrying out "research" does not automatically confer "truth." Accordingly, if something does not ring true, as has been plainly demonstrated by the multiple dozens of offended readers reacting to the "eight pets" piece, dontcha think that some further inquiry may be warranted. Perhaps, even a detailed look into some of the "foundation" research that prompted the assertions in the American Academy of Pediatrics article?

The sole source on the "danger" posed by hedgehogs, for example, was an outrageously false and inaccurate piece of uninformed bad science (actually no science) plastered on the CDC web site in January, 2005 (the Riley and Chomel article). Don't those guys (CDC) have any peer review?

Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, it seems as if bad science then gets magnified and embellished. Somewhere along the line, for example, it became apparent to some crusader that hedgehogs had quills (they are actually modified hairs) and that these quills are sharp. Well, now, if something is sharp, it must be able to penetrate the skin and then all sorts of horrors will then follow. I have dealt with hundreds of hedgehogs over a 12 year period and I have never seen nor heard of injuries caused to humans (of any age) by hedgehog quills. Indeed, when our Rescue does library and school educational presentations, after the talk, introductions of the 7 to 9 hedgehogs in the educational "road crew," and the questions and answers, we have the audience line up (if they wish) to "pet the hedgehog." Often this line is over 200 people, mostly small children. The hedgehog we use for this petting exercise is not a laid back beanbag of a hedgehog, but rather a fairly assertive character like our Wilma, who would "pop" 200 times if 200 strange hands touched her. This always brings screams and jumps and uncontrollable giggles from all of the petters. But ... But no broken skin. Why didn't these guys include THAT empirical data in their "research." Why? Because they already had an agenda starting out and that agenda was "exotic=dangerous" (without even adequately defining the word "exotic" in the first place).

Home Child Care Center Looking For A Pet For Her kids

Hello My name is Bethany Phillips,

I run a small in home child care center and I have children that range from one year old to 5 years old. And I was wondering what kind of pet should I get for them. They have all ready had fish but those firsh didn't last that long. Before they were flushed to the sea. So please if you have any ideas let me know. My E-mail is bethany780@yahoo.com thank you so much for you time

inadequate backpedaling

Kudos for acknowledging that you blogged a poorly researched scare-mongering piece of questionable relevance to modern parents! However, you ignore the point that many readers tried to hammer home: children under five years of age should not be left unsupervised with ANY pet. Dogs pose a much more serious threat to young children than hamsters and hedgehogs, which is why some parents turn to non-traditional pets.

Adults must be both responsible parents and responsible pet owners. This requires understanding the ability pets to interact safely with humans, and understanding the ability of small children to interact safely with pets. Consistent rules, love and gentle discipline are required both for raising children and socializing pets. Adults also need to understand the developmental limitations of younger versus older children and the normal social heirarchy for different pet species.

You shouted "Major health-threat to young children posed by exotic pets", but no where in your references is there any evidence that exotics pose a major threat to children. Shame on your yellow journalism! Better scare-mongering would pull the number of deaths and maulings from dogs. Or if you want to look at infectious disease, compare the incidence of infection for infants who are kept at home for their first six-moths, versus in-home/small daycare vs. larger institutionalized facilities. With those examples, you could at least twist hard facts into sensationalized fluff.