Public Health Notes 6 Animals in Schools and Rehabilitation Facilities

I n the United States there are an esti-mated 110 million pets, more than one for each family. Periodically, calls are re-ceived from the public and schools regard-ing the risk of animals in schools and reha-bilitation facilities. Studies have documented that pets can improve medical illness, both people in schools and other facilities regard-ing these questions. With this knowledge, each facility can make an informed decision regarding the use of animals. There are about 200 zoonoses with people generally serving as accidental hosts. Pets most likely to transmit zoonoses in-clude birds, reptiles and rodents while the cat and dog are the most likely to inflect serious bites. Dogs are responsible for over 80 % of the animal bites in the United States with cats in second place. Cat bites are more likely to cause infection because they pro-duce puncture wounds that bury organisms deep into tissue, while dog bites cause tear-ing injuries that can be opened and irri-gated. Reasons for Animals According to the National Science Teach-ers Association, the instructional reasons for animals in the classrooms are: to stimulate interest in the study of animal behavior; to develop skills of observation and compari-son; to develop an appreciation for interre-lationship and complexity of life; to give students a unique perspective of the life processes through experimentation and to develop a sense of stewardship and respon-sibility. Students often participate in the care and feeding of classroom animals. The educational and psychosocial ben-efits of having animals in the classroom exceed the relatively minimal risks. Most interactions between people and animals are pleasant, however, some interactions have undesirable outcomes. Undesirable out-comes can be greatly reduced by the appli-cation of common sense and a basic under-standing of animal and human behavior. In rehabilitation facilities, pets have been used for psychological and organic diseases. Pets can be valuable to people with hyper-tensive cardiovascular disease, as the simple tives. Pets provide companionship and al-low people to be alone without being lonely