[Moderator's note: Lots of links in this post. I normally check links
but have spotty internet access today and I am currently on a dialup
connection. I changed some links (like I often do) to make them work,
but I'm going only by experience today so can't say for sure all the
links will work. Sorry! BIG]
Ferrets have performed a number of service animal functions. They have
helped nursing home and hospital patients, have helped with autism,
and appear to take naturally to smelling and warning about on- coming
seizures.
If you think that this does not involve you, then think again. At least
one person who is in this position began seizures due to a hit and run
driver. Another reality is that the proportion of injured military
personnel who have brain injuries is very high. Removing animals who
can detect seizures in time from consideration as service animals is
one more insult for those people who have served their country and
already paid such a high price.
<http://www.extremeweezils.com/ewfriends.html#cerino>
<http://www.smallanimalchannel.com/media/critter-news/legal-news/ferrets-cause-eviction.aspx.pdf>
<http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/letters/story.html?id=7bfb0564-303b-4bf9-a419-25656c03d919>
A ferret who has helped an autistic child recover:
http://www.modernferret.com/pressreleases/sean.html
http://www.wolfysluv.com/seanval.html
http://www.wolfysluv.com/bb.html
In my own situation our furnace malfunctioned while my husband was out
on a morning walk. Hilbert, a very trustworthy ferret, was out of the
cage at the time. I was sleeping in and due to my asthma was beginning
to having breathing problems from the fumes. Hilbert climbed the bed
and gently and persistently kissed and nuzzled my face until I was
aware enough to force myself up, turn off the furnace, and vent our
home. My husband came home later to find us all huddled in the cold
but clean breeze from an open door.
Although i had thought that Hilbert merely saved me from a nasty asthma
attack my physician said that he more likely saved my life and that of
the other household pets as well as his own.
I've read of 4 or 5 times when ferrets alerted humans to house fires
and in doing so saved their families, but do NOT have refs for those
though i guess i can try searches when I get a bit of free time.
On why ferrets are not a serious rabies or bite risk: Sadly, the FDA
Veterinarian article (FDA Veterinarian Newsletter, May/ June 1991,
Vol VI, No.III) on PER CAPITA serious bite rates apparently no longer
exists on-line, but the rate -- which is adjusted for proportionate
number of animals -- of serious bites by ferrets was similar to that by
rabbits, about 1/200th the rate by dogs, which is not a surprise for
anyone familiar enough with ferrets, who are relatives of otters and
not rodents.
http://www.nasphv.org/
(National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians)
Here is the latest (Dec 2007 and it will being the Jan 2008 JAVMA
(Journal of the American Medical Veterinary Association)
Compendium of Animal Rabies Control and Prevention:
http://www.nasphv.org/Documents/RabiesCompendium.pdf
Notice in Section III for IMRAB 3:
>Ferrets 1 ml 3 months Annually SC which is species, dose, age of first
vaccination, how often to repeat, how to give the vaccine. Ferrets are
NOT considered to be vaccinated if more than a year has passed. That is
because testing for longer has not yet been done so it is not known if
the protection does or does not last beyond a year.
More rabies info:
http://www.avma.org/issues/policy/rabies_control.asp
(Guidelines for ordinances)
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/
(Loads of info at many different reading levels; even good ones as
resources for a child's school composition)
http://www.microbiologybytes.com/virology/bushmeat/bush4.html
http://www.vaccineinformation.org/rabies/qandadis.asp
http://www.lawrencefire.com/safety_tips/rabies/rabies.asp
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr57e507a1.htm
Might be useful:
http://www.animallaw.info/articles/arus74fordhamlrev2847.htm
The Animal Legal and Historical center
Also (and this data was from BEFORE the 1998 improvement to the
regulations for ferrets implicated in or accused of bites):
Partial quote of the abstract from
>Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
>July 15, 2000, Vol. 217, No. 2, Pages 190-194
>doi: 10.2460/javma.2000.217.190
>
>Animal bite epidemiology and surveillance for rabies postexposure
>prophylaxis by
>Dale A. Moore, DVM, PhD William M. Sischo, DVM, PhD Allison Hunter, BS
>Toni Miles, MD, PhD
> ...
>
>Procedure -- Data from animal bite reports from Pennsylvania county
>health offices were summarized for 1995. Animal bite incidences for
>the state, counties, various age groups, and various population
>densities were calculated. Animal species, treatment, location of
>wounds, and PEP recommendations were evaluated for exposures.
>
>Results -- More than 16,000 animal-related potential rabies exposures
>were reported from 65 of 67 counties in Pennsylvania...
>
>Although 75% of exposures were to dogs, victims exposed to cats were
>6 times as likely to receive PEP (relative risk, 6.1; 95% confidence
>interval, 5.1 to 7.4). Thirty percent of 556 PEP were given for
>exposures to dogs, 44% for cats, 7% for raccoons, 4% for bats, 2.5%
>for squirrels, 2.1% for groundhogs, 2% for foxes, and 8% for exposures
>to other species. Fifty-nine percent of owned dogs were up- to-date on
>rabies vaccinations compared with 41% of owned cats.
End quote of abstract.
A member vet should be able to get you the article from
<http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.2000.217.190?journalCode=javma>
http://www.dadehealth.org/downloads/epi_monthly_july_2006.pdf
also has a comparative chart
Georgia ( a reasonably large state where ferrets are not an unusual
pet) apparently had NO (?) reported ferret bites from 2004-2006 but
charts for other animals:
http://health.state.ga.us/pdfs/epi/gers/Nov07GER.pdf
There have also been those who worried about allergies, but allergies
to ferrets are so rare that it is exceedingly hard to find the
allergen compounds for them used for allergy shots or for sublingual
immunotherapy. Compared to finding it for ferrets (due to such low
demand) as opposed to dogs or cats is rather like finding it for pine
as opposed to rag weed.
Here are some sources of more info about those rare times it does
happen:
Involved ferrets and other pets:
Chest. 2005 May;127(5):1565-71. Effect of pet removal on pet allergic
asthma. Shirai T, Matsui T, Suzuki K, Chida K. Department of Internal
Medicine, Fujinomiya City General Hospital, 3-1 Nishiki-cho,
Fujinomiya, 418-0076, Japan.
http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/reprint/127/5/1565
Codina R, Reichmuth D, Lockey RF, Jaen C. Ferret Allergy. J Allergy
Clin Immunol. 2001;107:927. Division of Allergy and Immunology,
Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Florida College of
Medicine and James A. Haley V.A. Hospital, Tampa, FL 33612-4745, USA.
Nugent JS, Whisman B, Hagan LL. Ferret Allergy: Identification of Serum
Specific IgE to Albumin with Crossreactivity to Cat. J Allergy Clin
Immunol. 2003;111:S324 Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services
University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
http://allergies.about.com/od/animalandpetallergy/a/ferretallergy.htm
is from About.com on allergies to ferrets by Daniel More, MD
http://centralcoastallergy.com/
<http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/oeme/abstract.00022707-200511000-00006.htm>
Can not bring up the full article (which will hopefully have charts or
rates) but notice this conclusion:
QUOTE
Conclusions: This study suggests that the risk of LAA increases with
duration of exposure to animals and work in animal related tasks.
Incidence might be reduced by limiting hours per week of exposure to
laboratory animals.
END QUOTE
which is consistent with allergies in general: the more exposures
happen the more likely an allergy is to occur. Exposures of most
people to ferrets are far fewer than for dogs or cats.
Pet allergy (in general ) rates in children (most will be to cats, but
dogs, horses and possibly some others will be more common allergens
than ferrets):
<http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iuatld/ijtld/2001/00000005/00000011/art00012>
The Google Scholar search link mentions percentages:
BEGIN QUOTE
Incidence of asthma diagnosis and self-reported allergy in relation to
the school environment...G Smedje, D Norback - Int J Tuberc Lung Dis,
2001 - ingentaconnect.com... In 1993, pollen and pet allergies were
reported by 9.8% and 8.2% of pupils, respectively
END QUOTE
Full text:
<http://docstore.ingenta.com/cgi-bin/ds_deliver/1/u/d/ISIS/45361294.1/iuatld/ijtld/2001/00000005/00000011/art00012/B004149C488C15B412178075968FF961EBD014BA62.pdf>
<http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118716461/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0>
A general pet allergy write-up in:
<http://www.gerber.com/content/usa/html/pages/pediatricbasics/pdffiles/PedBasics_095.PDF>
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S003139550570362X
The following actually involve mink or fur trade animals or their pelts
or waste in general, but it is POSSIBLE that the people might have also
looked at fitch (ferrets used for fur) so getting the articles might be
useful for people who want to cover all bases.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9476806
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15592872
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12397421
General on animal allergy cross-reactivity (ex. of cross-reactivity:
people who are allergic to cats who are also allergic to ferrets):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9003217
The upshot is that fears and misassumptions about ferrets as service
animals tend to be based upon people simply not learning enough about
the topic, then figuring that what they assume must be fact. Sad and
avoidable, but true.
---
Small pieces of information and links from this post may be readily
used by anyone seeking to help the needs of ferrets as service animals.
If the post itself is used then it must be used in its entirely,
unaltered, with it properly accredited.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
[Posted in FML 6071]
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