Moon's Graden

Greetings group:
Some friends just adopted a very nice stray male cat that has been
living under their trailer for weeks. He's very friendly and has already
been neutered, but apparently, no one is looking for him; there have
been no people asking about him or wanted notes posted anywhere. They
have been hearing noises under their trailer for a while now, and they
occasionally smelled ammonia from cat pee. That explains what happened
to the rabbit population that *used* to be there.

Anyway, the wife is pregnant, and they wanted to know about what
diseases are potentially communicable from cats to humans. I've heard of
at least one, but don't recall what it is. I seem to recall that it was
litter born or something like that.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary Schooley

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The disease you're thinking of is called tomoplasmosis and you have nothing
to worry about in that regard if you're on litterbox duty while your wife is
pregnant. FYI, more people get toxo from raw meat than from cleaning
litterboxes so if you're not vegetarians, it would be a good idea for you to
prepare meat also.

Oh, and cats kept indoors are less likely to be toxo carriers as most get it
from eating mice, birds and the like.

Thanks. It's not *my* wife who's pregnant, nor *I* who adopted the cat. As I
said, it had been living outside eating rabbits, so there's no telling what it
may or may not have gotten. Nevertheless, it appears to be a fine, healthy cat.
We think someone dumped it, because no one has been looking for it at all. It's
been neutered, and clearly knows how to live indoors; he's most comfortable
inside now, and doesn't seem to want out at all. He has no fleas and hasn't
scratched himself once yet. He obviously belonged to *someone*, and not too long
ago, either.

Flippy in Melbourne, Australia, sent me a very good URL covering just about
everything:
http://www.onthe.net.au/~flippy/health.html
I printed that out and they are reading it now. That pretty much covers the
whole question, and I even learned some things from it.

Thanks,
Gary Schooley

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Husband gets catbox duty until after baby comes. If they plan on another,
husband gets catbox duty again until after. Other then that no extra real
risk. Cat should be checked by a vet though to insure good overall health.
After that I don't believe there are diseases that they can give usother
then the ones you know about, rabies and the like which a vet can vaccinate
the cat against. The catbox things has to do with a parasite, relatively
harmless to people in general except to fetuses as I understand it.
Naturally he should wash his hands completely after doing catbox duty (as
if he would not want to <g>). BTW I'm told on a cold night a furball on a
pregnant belly can feel real nice for awhile.