Erasmus 'n Kinkajou 
Kinkajou : Diseases:
The risks and how to mitigate them
Dr Xxxxx: Your health
I keep reading descriptions of how dangerous it can be to live closely with your dog. The reality is that it can be very dangerous to even have a dog. I have seen one website talk about how there are over 200 diseases a dog can spread to you. The reality is the organisms can spread to you whether you have your dog in your bed or in your backyard. Some diseases even require no contact with your dog. Some dog diseases don’t even require you to have a dog at all.
Kinkajou : Could You run through the categories of illness and disease and consider them.
Dr Xxxxx: Bacteria
All animals have bacteria living on the exterior (skin surface) and the interior (mouth and intestines). Generally many of these are not well adapted to living on human beings. If they are accidentally ingested by human beings or if human beings are exposed by touch, they really cause no problems. There are exceptions of course. If you have a wound or a break in a skin or other epithelial surface, bacteria can enter into your actual body itself. Cats and dogs carry a bacterium called Pasteurella which grows fast and aggressively. Bites for example are often contaminated with these bacteria – the bite creating a break in the skin surface, damaged tissues within and blocking circulation due to the crush injury – well enabling the bacteria to spread aggressively, most seriously as a cellulitis.
Pasteurella is a bacteria which is fortunately very sensitive to antibiotics especially penicillin. So doctors really have little trouble treating it.
Dogs outside do tend to scavenge and have no capacity to clean their backsides. They are not able to brush their teeth. This means there is often high bacterial contamination of parts of the body by rotting food and poo. Anaerobes are common in this type of contamination. These bacteria do not survive well being exposed to oxygen or being exposed and drying out. However because poop has bacterial counts of the order of exponential 12 to per cubic centimetre, even if 99% of the germs do die, the residual can certainly cause contamination and if you are unlucky- can cause infections.
Fungi sprouting on dog poo.
Dogs spend time outdoors often in close contact with the ground. Not surprisingly , they often pick up fungal infections which spread to humans. Again fungal infections are environmental agents often poorly adapted to living on humans. The fungal infections that tend to spread to humans are often described as “animal fungi” and if they managed to infect some very unlucky person, they often cause big purulent discharging sores that look like bacteria infected skin lesions. They are quite susceptible to fungal antibiotic treatment, but it will generally take a course of pills or capsules to fix them not a course of cream.
Studies have found that 20-30% of the bacteria in urban water drainage is due to dog waste.
Dr Xxxxx: The big infective agents I worry about are Multi-celled organisms and protozoa.
A friend had a cat who liked to eat possums. (They exist in plague proportions in most Australian cities). However in escaping from his “bedroom” and eating one of these possums, my friend was fairly sure their cat became exposed to giardia.
This causes diarrhoea in some animals, (one infection pattern). This causes anorexia and an unwillingness to eat or drink (another infection pattern) in some animals.
The good doctor has seen children who have caught giardia who arrive at his clinic looking like concentration camp victims, being carried in by their parents to see the doctor. When they stop eating and drinking, they weaken quickly, and they begin to look very sick and very weak and very frail indeed.
Treatment is exceptionally easy and effective if the organism is suspected and identified and treated -with a simple antibiotic. If of course the diagnosis is not made, the animal may die, (more so the pet cat being at risk rather than any child). Being kind, I think doctors have a little bit more information to work with than vets, and are a lot more likely to make the diagnosis and do the right treatment.
Dr Xxxxx: Worms are a big deal. There are many parasites that infect household dogs.
Dog hookworm infests the soil when a dog poos. As part of the parasite life cycle, the eggs come out of the animal’s intestinal tract in the faeces onto the ground. The eggs hatch, and the larvae spread across the soil waiting for an animal – typically a dog or cat of course to pass by. They will enter through intact skin, thereby affecting the animal. They don’t do well in large parts of Australia, because we have an arid climate. But it is very important to worm your animals.
Hookworm larvae, for example, can live for several weeks in the soil. (But maybe not the typical arid Australian yard). To the horror of some people, wormlike hairs may drop out of people's noses. (These are easily treated in dogs or humans with a medication called mebendazole - OTC in Australia).
Hookworms in a colon: spotted at colonoscopy. Yes you can do this procedure to dogs as well as humans.
Kinkajou : Any more Problem Parasites or Infective Organisms?
Dr Xxxxx: The 2nd horror parasite is the dog tapeworm Echinococcus granulosis.
It is the main reason I insist on animals being only fed cooked meat, under all circumstances. If the dog’s skin becomes contaminated by faecal material, humans can accidentally ingest embryonated eggs. These hatch within the human intestinal tract and burrow into the tissues of the body, where they form a cyst. These cysts then begin to progressively expand, filling with parasites.
If you are unfortunate enough to have a cyst in a critical area such as in your brain, you may be in for quite a rough time. Even cysts in more accessible areas such as within the abdominal cavity, if accidentally ruptured during surgery, can cause disseminated serious infection. They are also relatively resistant to oral anti-worming medicines within the cyst structures.
I have seen patients who are contemplating possible death as the markers for Echinococcus granulosis persistence -continue to rise inexorably- with nothing the specialist could do to alter the state of disease progression. The cysts are largely insensitive to anti-parasite antibiotic therapy and this is the problem. We actually don’t have an antibiotic which penetrates the cysts to kill them.
Abattoirs and meat works make a big effort to inspect all the meat passing through them, to exclude any meat grossly affected by cystic parasite (especially worm) infestations. However, visual screening can only get rid of meat which has high level contamination. It is of course always possible for low-level contaminated meat to make the grade and reach your local shop.
Again this is why I always insist on eating only cooked meat and on feeding only cooked meat to animals. If you get unlucky with the Echinococcus granulosis, you may die or suffer serious health injury.
This organism is not very common however. The tapeworm is very amenable to tapeworm therapies given to your dog with exceptional effectiveness. Worm your dog and feed it/them carefully and have very few risks. The most typical scenario is the infestation of a farm dog through eating meat sourced from a farm killed animal. In Australia that is why only abattoirs are allowed to “kill” animals such as sheep and cattle.
Dr Xxxxx: Still you do see the occasional unfortunate in the city, who cannot tell you where it all began. And who now has a sorry tale indeed to tell.
Dog Poo Care
Erasmus: 
Erasmus:
Goo :
Commandant :
Beethoven and Frobisher:
Dr AXxxxx :
Kinkajou : Kinkajou :
Dr Xxxxx:
Erasmus met Dr Xxxxx and over a number of years grew to develop a belief in the problems of our world.
Erasmus is an old dog, but he reckons he still can do new tricks. He’s been around, and up and down a few dry creek beds in his lifetime .Born into servitude at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, Erasmus quickly realised the world could be a hostile and dangerous place. Puppies disappeared daily, never to be seen again.
Kinkajou: Features in our web sites as an adventurer but he is equally accomplished in the art of reasoning and has often followed the comments of Erasmus to their logical conclusion. His belief in the truth leads him to always "tell it true". This is the world as it can be seen and this is the real world.
Dr Xxxxx. This good doctor actually represents a diversity of opinions held by a small cabal of medically aware people.
Dr AXxxxx. Simply best described as a cold inhuman bastard, Erasmus says we are indeed lucky to have this paranoid psychopath on our side. In spite of his antecedents, his perspective is valuable for us to use to understand our world. Dr AXxxxx’s past background is in taking charge and being master at the helm of the ship of destiny. Control is the ultimate goal. Nothing must stand in the way of control. Domination not cooperation. Suspect your enemies and kill them first, preferably after extracting all useful information. Your destiny is yours to make and to take. Vengeance is a heady mix to this paranoic murderer.
The Commandant: Head of our security detail, the Commandant believes in doing the right thing and always considering safe options. However, his view of what is right is coloured by association with Erasmus, Kinkajou and the doctors Xxxxx.
Frobisher & Beethoven: These guys are our bullywot "security mooks", Frobisher is the literate one while Beethoven provides just more raw muscle power. While Officious and Intolerant of transgressions, they none the less have a sensitive and fragile side to their natures, an aspect their personality totally at odds with their aggressive and fierce appearance.
Goo is a simple and humble mammal.(Actually a marsupial numbat really). His ability to change the world is limited by his meagre intellect and his short life span. Furthermore, as a member of an endangered species, he has to face the prospect of personal death as well as species extinction. He could one day be the last of his kind.