Brutal conditions: How to live with a cat, chinchilla, parrot and not only
Deciding to have a pet, we understand that in addition to tenderness and fun, new responsibilities await us, as well as wool, feathers, smells and sounds to which we are not accustomed. To make pets stay in the house safe for themselves and our own health, we have to take a fresh look at hygiene. Recently, a veterinarian told us about the rules of living with pets, from the prevention of major diseases transmitted to humans, to vaccination and treatment of wards in everyday life. But it is impossible to prepare for everything: taking care of pets acquires its own peculiarities in practice. How to keep them, not forgetting our own health, we asked the owners of domestic animals - from dogs and cats habitual for all of us to less common snails and parrots.
Finn - some half-breed terrier, wheat and shaggy. Francis looks like a Thai cat, but was found in a box near the garbage cans, so nobody knows his real origin. I always had pets, so with the advent of these two life has not changed much. But thanks to the dog, I got rid of perfectionism. Before, I was very squeamish, in the first weeks after Finn appeared, she even started at the touch of a wet nose to her hands and immediately rushed to wash them. Then I relaxed a bit (but it's good that Finn is not from slobbering rocks). The only thing that is always and everywhere is wool. Even if vacuuming and washing the floor twice. I just got used and resigned, and I offer guests a sticky roller for cleaning clothes.
My squeamishness has disappeared, but the habit of constantly washing my hands has evolved and it is imperative to remove everything from the table and the kitchen work surface to inaccessible places. After each walk with the dog, I wash his paws, belly and face in the shower. I had a cat before, so I used to regularly clean the cat tray and sweep it around three or four times a week. This is a habit, and you stop noticing. Once a year before vaccination, we pass a routine inspection at the veterinarian, and if necessary, more often. The dog was neutered last month, so there is no smell. The same fate will befall Francis in a few months. I plan to take him for a second inspection: the kitten has already recovered and got stronger, and I think it will soon be possible to vaccinate him.
Previously, I always believed that dogs should not sleep with their owners, but cats can - usually they are more delicate and neat. When Finn appeared in the house, he was allocated a chair. After a couple of months after the death of my former cat, I let the dog lie down on the sofa, and a few months ago and sleep on the bed. He turned out to be very modest and, as a rule, lies at his feet, and often goes to sleep on the floor or on the rug at the front door. I do not forbid the kitten to lie in bed: I decided that he would choose his own place, especially since they had to find a common language with the dog. As far as I know, Francis sleeps on the bed, but does so so unobtrusively that I do not always notice. Tonight I found him rumbling on the edge of the blanket not far from me. Does not interfere and does not climb on the head - that's nice.
To contain the parrot, I had to take some measures for housing arrangement. First of all, we installed grids on all the windows so that the parrot does not fly out: it seems to many that they cannot fly away, but the risk exists. In addition, we made anti-vandal repairs with a focus on porcelain stoneware, glass and metal in the space available to the parrot - no wood or other materials that a bird can chew on. For the purposes of hygiene, animal comfort and the preservation of the room, the parrot is set aside a separate space - a spacious glazed aviary. It has an entrance for people and tap holes through which a bird can get into the corridor. In other rooms, Abeba does not fly. The sounds he makes do not bother me: sometimes continuous vocals are delayed for an hour and a half, and this can be annoying, but usually he shouts out something funny, so it's impossible to be angry. At night, the bird is silent, so its presence does not affect the quality of sleep. Quite the contrary: the parrot does not allow reading in bed - it starts shouting: “Sleep, sleep”.
With the advent of the parrot, new hygiene requirements have arisen. It is necessary to regularly clean feathers and droppings, besides, the birds constantly and quite actively flapping their wings, so that leftover food remains. Every day I sweep an open-air cage, and once a week carefully wash. Parrots can be carriers of ornithosis, the causative agent of which is chlamydia, as well as a fungal disease called aspergillosis and various strains of avian influenza. Nevertheless, the issue of vaccinations never really bothered me, although there certainly were some recommended vaccines. I didn’t carry out veterinary examinations of a parrot for my own health — I take him to the doctor only if he is unwell. One day, the parrot poisoned it by gutting it and eating a cigarette, but asparagillosis somehow got sick for a long time - it was cured, but now every six months you need to be examined.
In the treatment of parrots there is one feature: they bite. Jaco has a powerful beak, and if it violently bites into the skin, it can leave a rather deep damage - I would not call it a wound, but it can take several weeks to complete healing. In order for a parrot to not do this, you need to anticipate its reaction and not tease (although I sometimes tease - I like it). The parrot loves to sit on the shoulder, with its head on the head of the owner, but it can also bite on the ear. Several times he bit me slightly, but I immediately drove him away and showed that it was wrong. Games are games, but safety is an important issue when dealing with parrots. They even joke that the pirates owe the absence of one eye and the characteristic black bandage to their parrots, who all the time sat on their shoulders.
Before these three I already had rodents, and I understood something about the maintenance of these animals. With small unpretentious gerbils, everything is simple: they are very hygienic and, unlike hamsters and ferrets, do not smell at all - you just need to change the filler in time. Chinchilla is a larger and mobile animal. At first, Robert seemed to me very beautiful and was associated with the surrealistic characters of Lewis Carroll: such a sad head with big eyes. Now, after a long observation, I sometimes call him Cheburashka and see in him a lot more stupid features: let's say he can fall very funny without calculating the jump.
As for hygiene, there is one tangible problem: while running around the cage, Robert scatters his bolus in a small radius around her, that is, feces, which often leads to vacuuming and sweeping one particular corner of the house. But since he practically does not leave the cage, the rest of the living space does not suffer. Chinchilla does not cause allergies - its cover is designed in such a way that parasites do not survive there. Mice, fortunately, do not shed, but a chinchilla can throw away pieces of wool in case of danger, in a stressful situation, when it is grabbed by a predator or is held too tightly by the owner.
We used to have a rat - however, it did not last long: it got sick and died after a month and a half (rodents have congenital diseases, and not all of them can be recognized with the purchase). The rats have increased intelligence, and we allowed close contact with ours: she crawled on the bed, and when my wife quit smoking in the stairwell, the rat went with her and sat on her shoulder. We sometimes release mice to run around a chair or in a walking ball, which they don’t really like - and that’s it. If you allow rodents to run around the house, the mice will be thrown into the crack, from where they will have to lure food, and the chinchilla, if you believe the information on the forums, is likely to gnaw the wires or jump out of the window altogether.
Ratologists - veterinarians specializing in rodents - in Moscow are not very many, and even fewer those who are engaged in the treatment of chinchillas. But the plus is that all existing on the rumor, and in the host communities have entire databases of doctors. Recently, Robert had to be taken to the doctor in the middle of the night: he was fighting in a cage in some kind of fit. It turned out that the animal has stress. Chinchillas are very sensitive: a car with a siren drove two blocks from the house - that's all, a shock. Acquiring rodents and especially chinchilla, you need to understand that their maintenance will require additional efforts, but you should not worry too much about hygiene. Healthy individuals do not have viruses transmitted to humans, but, be that as it may, they cannot eat with mice from the same plate. After each contact with the animal, they recommend washing their hands, but let's be honest: the owners of dogs or cats do not always follow this rule, so in this sense I would not demonize rodents either. True, we have an eight-month-old baby, and when he begins to crawl around the cells from which sawdust periodically fly, we will need to think of something.
Regarding hygiene in the house with the animals, we are not particularly worried: the cat is completely indoor. Several times, when the door remained ajar and the cat ran into the street, for half an hour she returned herself or we caught her - and still, in these cases, I thoroughly washed and cleaned her paws. If suddenly gape during cooking, the cat can easily snitch a slice of raw meat (a predator after all). Noticing this, you need to give the animal anthelmintic suspension. Of course, the realization that a cat may have parasites causes discomfort, because the risk immediately spreads to everyone who lives in the house. Regarding toxoplasmosis and other things, I am absolutely calm. We vaccinate the cat according to the recommendations once a year and a half, not more often. They are vaccinated against rabies, panleukopenia, calicivirosis, cat leukemia.
To protect yourself and the animal, you have to carefully care for it. I clean the cat's ears with cotton buds, and I cut the claws and brush it with wet napkins. This prevents dangerous diseases: when kittens were first born to Dita, they all got sick with Staphylococcus aureus - and all from the dirt under the claws of her mother. With bald cats, this is how: the more often they are washed, the dirtier they become - they have good self-regulation of fat and sweat. Sometimes I wipe it with moist, hypoallergenic, fragrance-free wipes. My cat is very clean and demanding when it comes to the toilet, sometimes it shows it in a peculiar way: if I am not at the right time or do not immediately remove its tray, I can get a pile on the bed.
With bald cats, there are many nuances. Ours often sleep with me and my husband, because she is always cold and can catch a cold at any moment. I noticed that the cat has cold paws - it is necessary to warm it. In addition, our cat was diagnosed with bronchial asthma, and this changed all the rules of care. I had to buy a humidifier, remove the fragrances from the house, use perfumes and aroma sticks too. I give Dita corticosteroids, and every four months you need to do an x-ray. The hassle has increased, but what can you do: the cat is a member of the family. Sphynx and Devonian Rex have, in principle, many features: the genetics of the breed are unstable, respectively, and the rules of content are special. In this case, the nature of the cats of these breeds are more like dogs. Dita is very attached to us: she meets on the threshold, always sits on her hands and climbs hugging. In general, the contact is extremely close - and safe.
In our company AGIMA live seven snails and a rabbit. We call the rabbit Daisy, and the snails - as seven gnomes, each time in a random order. The rabbit is still living in a not very spacious cage, but we are working on it, and the snails occupy a meter high rack of three transparent containers. From time to time small wars with management happen: our little zoo makes life in the agency something special, native and human, and the chefs have persistent beliefs that there should be no animals in the office.
With the advent of animals was not without difficulty. As a filler for the rabbit cage, we had to switch to hay: it is easier for him to scatter sawdust, and quite a lot of rubbish is formed on the floor, and the cleaner does not like it. We had an attempt to have a kitten, but then the objective circumstances still prevailed: many employees are allergic, besides, the cat walks by itself, including on the keyboard, it is difficult to teach it to the tray in the office. So the kitten passed into the hands of our designer Kate, where he still lives. But the rabbit and snails are very compact, problem-free animals. Daisy is isolated from allergy sufferers and does not prevent anyone from working - apart from the fact that when we release her to walk around the office, she can chew on the shoelace of shoes or wires.
The rabbit needs care: you have to cut the claws and make sure that it does not blow; a cold rabbit is a sad sight. Whether our rabbit is vaccinated, unfortunately, is unknown, and we ourselves did not vaccinate. Fortunately, in the office there is nothing special for him to get infected - Daisy sits in a cage all day and is not in contact with other animals. We are happy to take the rabbit and the snails in our hands, but after the contact of the hand it is worth washing, despite the fact that, for example, the slime of the snails is considered useful. Incidentally, there were nine of them: we gave one away, and another one died for unknown reasons. They say it is peculiar to snails, so that we, although we were upset, wrote off what happened to natural selection.
When we started the office animals, we weren't ready for being tied to them so much. It turned out that when everything falls out of the hands, the rabbit is the main anti-stress. When my colleagues and I are in conflict or moving away from each other, and we still need to work in a team, things get a little better when we feed and pet our pet. Or go to the store for a salad for snails. Or we drill new holes in their containers so that they do not suffocate. In general, when you start one animal and you understand that you can cope with it, you immediately want to take more and more. So we had the idea to start a jellyfish, and in the analyst’s office we tried to grow the word “Anal” on the wall with moss. Ended up bringing a Venus flytrap and calling it Gertrude.