pet_stuff

Pet Stuff

I remember reading somewhere that you can’t catch anything from your dog, like a cold or flu, nor can he catch yours. Nothing is really communicable between humans and their pets, unless you have a pet monkey or a little boy or something. While I don’t have any scientific proof yet, I suspect this is a falsehood.

The thing that got me wondering about this, and which enabled me to pierce the veil of secrecy perpetuated by the lobby for Purina Puppy Chow, was a disclaimer I had to sign when we purchased a parakeet for my daughter.

But first, allow me to digress for a moment. Did you know that Americans purchased more food for our pets last year than we spent on baby food? I believe this because Tender Vittles tastes way better than Gerber Strained Beets; and because I heard the same sucking sound coming from my wallet at the pet store that I heard when I took the kids to ChuckE Cheese to spend huge dollars on plastic bits worth pennies.

Sam’s new parakeet, Ricky, cost $9.95. Not so bad, huh? Plus an extra dollar for an ‘exotic’ parakeet (which simply means it costs more for a different color nature determined not best for survival in the wild).

But by the time we left, we spent another $35 for a cage, $3.29 for food, $3.59 for sand grit, $2.39 for a calcium bone, $1.59 each for two perches, $2.89 for birdie treats, $1.89 for poop paper, $19 for birdie Jacuzzi, $1.15 for birdie beak brush, $59 for birdie toilet paper, $9.99 for a year’s subscription to Birds of a Feather, and a little birdie computer complete with a one year subscription to AOL.

Then, the salesman, hoping I’d be stunned out of suspicion, whipped out an affidavit bigger than my ego, with legal mumbo jumbo in a font so small that would take an electron microscope to make out, and told me I had to sign it. He said it was an indemnity to release the pet store from legal responsibility should we catch a communicable disease which humans can catch from parakeets. With

a smarmy car salesman smile, he assured me that the risks were absolutely minimal, and he could scarcely believe I had to sign the paper, but still watched carefully to be sure I signed away their legal responsibility.

As I drove away, the back of the car swaying from the load of bird stuff, I mulled over this communicable thing. My dog gets a distemper shot, yet, doesn’t he provoke mine whenever he pees on my deck instead of venturing out into the rain? And what about rabies? Can’t we get rabies from animals? Rabies became such a big issue that even the lobby for Purina Puppy Chow had to admit to its existence.

I started trembling. We are in danger of catching our pets’ diseases!

We got home, and I slumped shakily into my chair. Then Buster strolled into the room, stretched, and took a calculated look at me. Then, with an insidious grin on his canine face, as if he knew what I was thinking, deliberately and provocatively ….. yawned.

I shuddered, and tried manfully to stifle the urge, as, all of a sudden, I, …I… yawned, too!