May 2006
Animal Attraction
by Emmy Favilla
How pets can teach positive owners to heal
Cats dialing 9-1-1, dogs dragging infants to safety: These
days, pets are truly earning their keep. But for people with
HIV, Fido and FiFi have long offered a new leash on life.
A Multicenter AIDS Cohort study of more than 2,000 positive
people reports that pet owners experience fewer bouts of depression,
among other health benefits.
Kim Olivares, for instance, was diagnosed in 1993 and fell
into a deep funk that worsened when her son moved out. “I
turned into a lump on the couch and isolated myself,”
says Olivares, now 50, who lives in Half Moon Bay, California.
“I took comfort in food and gained 30 pounds.”
Enter Spot, a feisty pit bull, who yanked her from the sofa.
“I first walked Spot a lot to tire him out, so he’d
stop chewing my orchids,” she says. As he grew, they’d
clock three to four miles each day, and Olivares watched the
weight melt off. Staying active also helps her manage elevated
cholesterol from meds, as well as high blood pressure.
“The responsibility of having a pet can motivate us
to take care of ourselves,” says Victor Spain, a veterinary
epidemiologist who works with Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS)
in San Francisco, an organization that serves HIV positive
pet owners. San Francisco patient Eric Skiver, 46, agrees,
saying of his Jack Russell terrier, Boner: “This dog’s
unconditional love has given me the will to go on.”
Pets also facilitate social interaction, Spain adds. Ask
Blake Velde, 47, who lives with Jake, a poodle–Lhasa
apso mix, and Jessie, a Westie, in Arlington, Virginia. The
pooches helped him meet neighbors. “Most of us have
dogs, and we met on walks,” he says. “It helps
me feel welcome.” Olivares feels more welcome, confident
and attractive, too. Call it puppy love.
May 2006
Purrrfect Health
Protect yourself from pet-borne infections
Few people living with HIV contract pet-borne illnesses, but
these simple
prevention tips can keep you and your brood focused on the
love bug instead.
Immediately treat open cuts and scratches, especially if you’re
severely immuno-
compromised, and consider gloves when handling repeat offenders.
Always wear
gloves, however, when handling feces, and keep your pet’s
vaccines and checkups
up to date. Talk to your doc, too.
Cats
Use disposable liners in the litter box, wash your hands after
touching it and avoid inhaling the litter.
Dogs
Don’t touch puppy diarrhea, and keep your pooch screened
for parasites. Worm your pup if the test proves positive.
Birds
Avoid touching droppings and nasal discharges, and don’t
inhale around feathers or dander.
Fish
Wear gloves when cleaning aquariums.
Rodents
Beware of bites, and steer clear of droppings, which are deceptively
small.
Reptiles
Not recommended as pets: Reptiles lie in their own feces,
so bacteria abound.
Jul / Aug 2003
The Truth About Cats And Dogs (& A Horse
And A Bird)
by Kayreth Williams,Liz Galst
They play with us when we’re well and comfort us when
we’re sick. They stand by us through treatment failures,
bad relationships and worse hairdos (unless they’re
secretly searching the want ads when we leave the house).
While we throw tantrums and shed tears, they just throw up
and shed. At last, HIVers pay tribute to our better halves—the
canine and feline (and equine and avian) pals that save our
lives every day. And in a Paws, er, POZ exclusive, those selfsame
furry friends answer the burning question: Is it really love?
Or do you just stick around for the treats?
STICKING AROUND
Kevin Bently loved and lost Jack and Richard before he found
Paul—but through it all, Henry was there to chew up
the scenery. A tale of true love among four dudes and a dachshund
While I was growing up in West Texas, our pets tended to
disappear when they became inconvenient: Fritz, the dachshund
who destroyed our wading pool, was gone when my brother and
I got home from school one day; Puddles, the little black
spaniel who threw up repeatedly on a cross-country car trip,
my father simply put out of the car at a rest stop. I thought
of these disposals ome
years later, in 1986, when my mother first learned that Jack,
the lover with whom I’d been living in San Francisco,
had been diagnosed with PCP. “Get out of there before
you get it too,” she told me flatly.
But of course I already had it—that is, Jack and I
were both already HIV positive before we met one Sunday afternoon
at the Giraffe Bar on Polk Street and moved in together a
month later—only I wasn’t sick. (And I wouldn’t
get sick. I am, I would come to learn, what’s now called
a long-term nonprogressor.) Two years later, when Jack came
home from his second hospitalization, we decided to get a
puppy. Jack, formerly a gregarious maitre d’, was 10
years older than I and had very much been the dominant personality—but
illness had blurred all that. “We’ll get a puppy,
and we’ll name him Henry,” he said simply. Who
was making this decision? I hadn’t had a pet in the
10 years since I’d left home; dog ownership seemed to
mean accepting a certain amount of responsibility—no
staying out all night or lying abed all day hungover. Getting
a dog now seemed like an investment in living, a vote of confidence
in our future, whatever its duration: We’re here now
and we should be as happy as we can. “And,” Jack
said,
“when I die, you’ll have Henry.”
So we had the name but not the dog. Henry finally came, in
a roundabout way, through PAWS, the group that helps both
to care and find new homes for patients’ pets: A friend
attending one of its benefits happened to hear about a couple
in Sacramento who’d found a miniature dachshund puppy
abandoned in a park, and several phone calls later our friend
Bob was driving me to Sacramento to pick it up. (“I
thought you might need these,” he said, popping open
the glove compartment and handing me two tiny pairs of handcuffs.)
When we pulled up to the little stucco house, three dogs shot
out of a swinging dog door—the last,
and smallest, hurtling himself at my head as I crouched in
the grass. He seemed to know this was his big break. Back
at the apartment, the little dog dove onto the bed and woke
Jack, licking his face. See, Jack’s weary eyes said.
Wasn’t I right?
Our yappy little red dachshund, whose sole concession to discipline
was his becoming speedily housebroken, grew closest to Jack
because he was with him all day long, curling up next to his
head on the pillow. Henry amused and comforted Jack, but he
also tromped across his KS-riddled stomach and tried to lap
up the urine when the urine bag came loose from the hospital
bed. He barked at the doctor, the ambulance crews and, several
months after his arrival, the men from Daphne Mortuary who
came to take away Jack’s body. He licked my tears when
I wept, but he also chewed up my sunglasses and inhaled a
breakfast muffin when I turned away to answer the latest sympathy
call (and threw it up again perfectly whole when I yelled).
He was, at all times, a dog.
I saw the terror in his grief, and mine; Jack had exited
abruptly—would I be next? He howled when I went out,
strewed the trash and slept on any article of my clothing
within reach.
Henry was 3 by the time I met Richard, who had come along
one night with Bob for our weekly racquetball game. As shy
and solemn as Jack was extroverted, Richard owned a bookstore
and two cats (one of several reasons we never merged households).
There was initially some question of whom Richard was most
smitten with, me or Henry. After the first night Richard spent
with me, I came home from an errand to find a bag of gift-wrapped
dog treats and flea powder with a vintage dachshund postcard
addressed to Henry hanging on my door. Later on, if I was
impatient with Henry for barking at passersby or taking too
long to pee on a walk, Richard would chide: “Don’t
you know how much that little dog loves you?”
In a video we made one Christmas, Richard sits in an armchair
cradling Henry like a baby and crooning, trying to get Henry
to sing, his party trick. Henry stares up in adoration, wags
the tip of his tail, licks Richard’s nose, but won’t
howl. “Well, Henry’s refusing to cooperate,”
Richard says, laughing. “We’ll just have to send
him to obedience school—where they’ll make him
sing.”
After Richard’s death in 1992, it was just us again:
I saw my own reduced emotional circumstances mirrored in Henry,
who, stunned, graying, seemed to have accepted that happiness
came only in two- or three-year allotments. At first his health
suffered—there was serious back trouble (a common problem
with wiener dogs) and an infection from which he almost expired.
But he recovered, and we tended to each other over the lean
years until I met and eventually moved in with Paul, situating
us—between the loft and the shared house in the country—in
high cotton.
Paul, who is HIV negative, found me through the relationship
ad I’d placed, in which I billed myself a “long-term
non-progressor.” He had no idea what that actually meant
until halfway through our first long phone conversation. Yet
he didn’t discard me.
Recently, when I picked Henry up at the vet after leaving
him overnight for blood tests, the young woman in a green
lab coat who carried him out said, “Henry’s been
a perfect gentleman.” “You haven’t slept
with him,” I told her. He’s 112 in dog years now,
and, as befits a centenarian, he farts, hogs the covers and
sneezes copiously.
The puppy that leapt across the bed to lick Jack’s
face has grown, filled out and now shrunk to sinew and bone
at age 16. His face and legs are white, his eyes murky and
opaque with cataracts, a benign swelling alongside one ear
like Billie’s gardenia. He sleeps with his tongue poking
out of his mouth and can’t hear the front door opening
anymore. He retains the knack for ripping open wrapped packages
with his few remaining teeth, regardless of whether or not
they’re meant for him. He has never, to my knowledge,
obeyed a command or slept in a dog bed. Not long ago, we finally
covered the loft’s cement floors with linoleum and carpet.
“Honey,” a friend pointed out as Henry coughed
up his heartworm medicine, “usually people get the new
carpet after the old dog dies.” Watching Henry thin
and whiten, I’ve come slowly to the realization that,
contrary to expectations, I’m going to be the one left
to turn out the light. With Jack and Richard both, there were
times when, hurrying home after work and looking up at the
lit window, I’d think, He’s there waiting for
me, but one day he won’t be—and I’d rush
in and grab my lover in my arms till he’d laugh and
push me off, saying, “I’m not going anywhere.”
I remember that feeling now as I watch Henry sleeping, which
he does most of the time.
Unlike people, who necessarily tire of discussing the dead,
Henry’s connection to those we love stays constant.
He whimpers and his back legs twitch, and I imagine Jack and
Richard moving as unremarkably through his dreams as they
do mine.
DOS AMIGOS
Not everyone finds his best friend on death row, but Chocolate,
Jairo Noreña’s cocker spaniel/Doberman mix, was
lucky to do just that. “My friend Zaida was unable to
keep Chocolate because her new building doesn’t allow
pets,” says Noreña, a Colombian who’s been
living in the New York City borough of Queens since 1991.
“She’d taken him to an animal shelter, and they
were going to put him to sleep, so I decided to take him.”
Since that fateful rescue three and a half years ago, Noreña
and Chocolate have discovered they’ve got a lot in common.
Both are “nervous and very quiet,” according to
Noreña. And both know some English and a lot of Spanish.
“He understands words in both languages,” Noreña
says proudly. Plus, Chocolate’s the ideal roommate:
“He’s so obedient and clean. When I’m eating
he never asks for anything. And when we go out for walks,
he never barks at the other perritos.”
Noreña, for his part, adores Chocolate’s company.
“Having HIV is something that constantly gives you surprises,”
notes Noreña, who tested positive in 1989. “Chocolate
is always there for me.”
OUR BUDDIES, OURSELVES
How can HIVers with pets stay safe and healthy themselves?
Cal Cohen, MD, busy caring for Boston HIVers, had his chow/retriever
mix Murphy and lab Ceili phone in these tips:
- Talking toxo: HIVers and neggies alike can be exposed
to toxoplasmosis parasites in kitty poo—but that won’t
put you at risk for brain-addling toxo illness unless your
T cells drop dangerously below 100. If they do, must Kitty
go? Nah. If you’ve long owned a cat, you may well
have been exposed to toxo already; Doc can test you. If
you’re toxo-negative, have the vet test Kitty for
it—and if Kitty’s negative, keep Kitty indoors
and on commercial cat food only. If Kitty’s positive,
try to guilt-trip a friend into cleaning and changing the
litter. And if your Ts are that low, hopefully Doc’s
got you on PCP-preventing Bactrim, which wards off toxo
illness, too.
- More feline advice: Wear latex gloves while handling
the litter, then wash up right after. Keep Puss indoors.
Talk to your vet about having Puss’s nails removed
or clipped to avoid scratches, which can cause serious infections
in anyone, HIV or no. If Puss swipes ya, wash the scratch
and call Doc if you notice fever, redness, swelling or swollen
lymph nodes.
- And the rest of them critters? Visit www.sonic.net/~pals/
safe/safe_pet.html. Otherwise it’s all common sense:
Feed your furry friends only commercial or well-cooked food
(raw meat can give ‘em parasites). Keep ’em
flea-free and frisky with vaccinations and routine checkups.
- Does Fido or Fifi have diarrhea?
Avoid touching it—and have the vet check pronto for
parasites.
Got a Tweety?
- Wear latex gloves and mist the cage before cleaning it.
Avoid strays of all kinds. And if your pet is bigger than
you, it had better be dumber. Meow.
PETS TALK BACK
Snowball on life with Rosemary Brown-Muhammad,
47 (diagnosed ’02)
Albuquerque, NM
What do you like to do best?
Put out candles with my paws, get my long, white hair on Mommy’s
clothes, and snuggle a lot with her. We are all each other
has.
Josh on life with Richard Goldman, 54 (diagnosed
’85)
San Francisco (richsf@hotmail.com)
Are you in it for the love or the food?
It’s almost always about the food—or some petting.
Are you two the same animal?
We both like to sleep, and we’re both clean. But anything
I’d eat raw, he cooks.
Why bother?
Butch, Noha and Whitey (from left) on life
with Jack Young, 27 (diagnosed ’95),
Albuquerque, NM
Like master, like dogs?
Well, we can clean our plates, and he can’t. Plus, Butch
is the only truly butch one of the four of us—even though
Jack thinks the three of us were born bi or gay. He considers
us his kids, though, and his partner as our other daddy. And
we love him back, especially when he takes us for rides in
his car.
Sunshine on life with Carie Broecker, 37
(diagnosed ’87),
Pacific Grove, CA (info@practicalmagicstore.com)
Have you two shared any mystical experiences?
We visited a psychic once. She told Carie that I’d said,
“Do not worry. You are healed. You will be around for
a long time.” The psychic knew nothing about Carie’s
health condition. That confirmed that I am Carie’s guardian
angel.
And how do you fill that role?
I remind her that an afternoon nap with me is a very good
thing.
Joey on life with Jeffery Lactaoen, 37 (diagnosed
’85), San Francisco, CA
(TattooedMuscleSF@aol.com)
Are you guys the same animal?
We both tend to get really hyper and bounce off the walls.
Is there anything you want to do for Jeffery that’s
beyond your power?
I would give him a stronger arm so that he can throw my toys
better. I would also take away his virus and make sure he
is never alone.
Maggie on life with Kelly Tracy, 40 (diagnosed ’02),
Decatur, Illinois
(kellmo4@insightbb.com)
Do you make Kelly laugh?
One day she took a lot of pictures of me in a raincoat she
bought me. The hood was too big and I couldn’t see where
I was going. Whenever she looks at them,she cracks up.
Harry on life with Ron Sherman, 55 (diagnosed
’89), San Francisco
(HarryCatPlusRon@aol.com)
Just who chose whom here?
When Ron opened the door to my cage at the SPCA, I crawled
up and kissed him on the nose. He smiled and announced, “The
hunter has been captured by the game.”
Do you have any special talents?
Ron says I can fetch like a dog, though I don’t appreciate
being compared to those creatures.
Kim-Chi on life with Luis Santiago, 61
(diagnosed ’86), and wife Carolina
Adjuntas, Puerto Rico (cayaca@aol.com)
Why are you named after the pungent Korean pickled cabbage?
Because I’m both stinky and wonderful.
My dad found me lonely and hungry on the street. Now I’m
queen of the house.
How do you spend your days?
Chasing the neighbors’ chickens. And when the neuropathy
in my dad’s legs gets him down, I make him laugh with
one of my tricks.
Chester on life with Pali Boucher, 40 (diagnosed
’93), San Francisco
(palisdoghouse@hotmail.com)
How have you improved Pali’s life?
When she leans over to look out the window, I give her a little
bite on the behind. She never sees it coming.
Are you two the same animal?
We’re both full of love and happy to be alive and well.
Also, she might be getting gray like me, but you’d never
know it with that Lady Clairol she uses.
Cheyenne on life with Kory Montoya, 37 (diagnosed
’01), Albuquerque, NM
(Kory66@msn.com)
Are you two the same animal?
We like to watch the same TV shows. But I haven’t learned
how to use the remote
yet, so that might change.
How’s the food?
I love it. But when I’m upset that he’s left me
alone, I’ll hide my food behind
the door and eat cookies instead.
Kimoko on Stephen Miller, 49 (diagnosed ’83),
Washington, DC (wdcnative@aol.com)
What do you really think of Stephen?
I love him! He spoils me—steaks for dinner when I’m
good and walks twice a day.
Most dogs would kill to be in my paws. P.S. He’d also
want me to mention he’s
looking for a boyfriend.
THE CAT WHISPERER
Stephen Trivoli-Johnson’s friend Lynden, who’s
also HIV positive, had gone for a walk. “He came into
the house and said, ‘Come see this,’” recalls
Trivoli- Johnson, a former bank auditor from Orange County,
California. Left for dead under a nearby bush was a tiny white
kitten covered in dirt. “It broke my heart,” recalls
Trivoli-Johnson, who, despite warnings that cats can infect
PWAs with toxoplasmosis (See “Our Buddies, Ourselves,”),
took the kitten home. A quick meal of the nutritional supplement
Ensure perked the kitten right up. Trivoli-Johnson, who lives
on disability, christened her Dene, a Navajo name meaning
chosen, and the two became fast friends. That’s been
important to Trivoli-Johnson, 46, who has lost almost all
his friends to AIDS since testing positive 19 years ago.
In their four years together, the cat has provided some much-needed
comic relief. “One morning I was feeling real blue,”
Trivoli-Johnson remembers. “I looked over from the bed
and saw Dene and this baby bird”—which had somehow
gotten in the house—“staring at each other. When
I got up, the bird was chasing the cat!”
About a year ago, Trivoli-Johnson and Dene welcomed another
abandoned cat, KeeKee, into their home. (This one was named
by Trivoli-Johnson’s 3-year-old niece, who couldn’t
quite pronounce kitten.) “The cats always make me feel
wanted,” Trivoli-Johnson explains. “Even though
I have wonderful family and wonderful support, there’s
some things I can’t tell them. I tell the cats.”
E-mail Stephen, Dene and KeeKee at stephen@ocapwa.org
THE RIGHT VET FOR YOUR PET
“Your bond with your pet is invaluable,” says
Columbus, Ohio, veterinarian Jennifer Jellison—and with
three kids, five cats, three dogs, a rooster, snake and ferret,
she’s got plenty of value herself. This year alone,
she’s offered TLC and a lot more to the pets of about
50 HIVers, many referred by the Columbus AIDS Task Force.
Jellison shared with POZ these tips for finding the purrrfect
vet:
- Call your local AIDS service organization (ASO) to see
if it can point you toan HIVer-friendly vet—perhaps
one who cuts a discount to HIVers in need. * Probe your
pet-keeping pals for a fuzzy referral from someone you trust.
- Visit www.healthypet.com or call 303.986.2800 to find
a clinic near you that’s been approved by the American
Animal Hospital Association (AAHA)—a good sign that
it’s clean and courteous. Call and ask if they offer
boarding and grooming,
emergency services, payment plans and house calls.
- When you’re checking out vets, scan the facility—and
bring Benji along (think of it as doggy daycare). Is it
clean? Friendly? Beware clinics that bar tours.
- Get an estimate. Fido making seal sounds? Muffin puking
bright blue goo? Head to your vet’s office and ask
for an assessment of treatment costs. Too steep?
Say so—and try to work out a compromise.
- Check around town for a vaccine clinic that does yearly
preventatives like shots and heartworm tests cheap or free.
Then you can save the vet for illnesses and emergencies.
—RonniLyn Pustil
BEST IN SHOW
It makes sense that someone used to the high dive—and
high-level competition— isn’t content to laze
around the house with his pooches, tossing them the occasional
Milkbone or playing fetch in the backyard.
So it is that diver Greg Louganis, the four-time Olympic
gold-medalist, has taken his three dogs to the peak of canine
competition. Nipper, a six-year-old Jack Russell terrier,
is in training for the American Kennel Club Nationals, one
of dog-training’s most prestigious events. Likewise,
Dobby, another Jack Russell, and Gryff, a Border collie, work
out with—and against—champs. Nipper is working
at a pretty high level,” Louganis says. “She’s
been to the Grand Prix, an agility event,” he notes
in the language of dog-show insiders. “She’s up
against some dogs on the U.S. World Team.”
As much as Louganis likes to discuss the technical aspects
of dog training (“I’m looking into doing some
go-to-ground work with Nipper”), his biggest connection
to the dogs is emotional. “They keep me grounded,”
he says. And they teach him to live better, too: “They’re
much more forgiving than people are,” explains Louganis,
who has co-authored the dog-care how-to For The Life of Your
Dog, in addition to Breaking the Surface, his account of coming
out amidst athletic fame as both gay and HIV positive. “If
someone pisses me off, I’m like, ‘Grrr….’
I’ve learned from them how to let go a lot quicker.
I’m a lot more forgiving because
of them.”
PUP ‘N’ PUSS PAGES
Collar these top tomes on people and their pets:
The American Animal Hospital Association Encyclopedia of
Dog Health and Care by
Sally Brodwell and the AAHA (HarperCollins, 1996). A mutt-have.
How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend: The Classic Training
Manual for Dog Owners
(Little, Brown, 2002) and other books by Monks of New Skete.
When it comes to
canine wisdom, these upstate New York monks lead the pack.
The Cornell Book of Cats: A Comprehensive and Authoritative
Medical Reference
for Every Cat and Kitten edited by Mordecai Siegal (Random
House, 1997). Don’t
raise Garfield without it.
The Healing Power of Pets: Harnessing the Amazing Ability
of Pets to Make and
Keep People Happy and Healthy by Dr. Marty Becker (Hyperion,
2003). Written
proof of what you’ve known all along.
The Hidden Life of Dogs (Pocket, 1996) and other books by
Elizabeth Marshall
Thomas. What dogs do when we’re not around—and
why. Fascinating.
Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs by
Caroline Knapp
(Delta, 1999). Deeply moving.
The Loss of a Pet by Wallace Sife (Wiley, 1998). Sife, who
founded the
Association for Pet Bereavement, honors this pain—and
helps you through it.
Walter, the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle (North Atlantic,
2001). Yours
does, too—admit it.
UNBRIDLED LOVE
I always liked horses—I rode them as a kid,”
says Angie Lawrence, 41, of rural South Berwick, Maine. Still,
by the time she was 35, her lifelong wish of owning one had
been deferred: “I was diagnosed in ’93, pre-protease,
and I was pretty focused on my disease.”
One day, a woman walked into her family’s swimming-pool
business. As the two got talking, the woman revealed she’d
just bought a horse. “I said, ‘Wow, I’ve
always wanted one, but I’m too old,’” Lawrence
recalls.
What she really meant was “the doctors had me scared
that animals would get you sick,” Lawrence explains.
Still, the woman told her, “Do it. It’s your dream.”
Soon, Lawrence started hanging out at a nearby barn, where
she met Goldie, a sweet-tempered 22-year-old quarter horse
with a bad leg injury. The vet was thinking of putting her
down. “We didn’t know if she was going to be whole
or not,” Lawrence recalls. “But I didn’t
know if I was going to be whole or not, so I thought, ‘Let
me give this a shot.’”
Now she and partner Leigh Peake live on a farm with Goldie
and three other horses. “We healed each other,”
says Lawrence, who has never had any major HIV- related health
problems but still found herself obsessed with the prospect.
“Taking care of Goldie was a way of taking care of myself.
It made me think, ‘Why was I focusing on my illness
so much?’”
E-mail Angie and Goldie at angielawrence@comcast.net.
THE MAX FACTOR
When Vanessa Olave’s best friend, dog-breeder Stephen
Brue, offered her a springer spaniel puppy a year ago, she
had to think about it—hard.
The 45-year-old case manager at Our Common Cause, a substance-abuse
treatment center for HIVers, wanted a dog. She’d grown
up with dogs. But “people said I shouldn’t get
one because of my HIV,” says Olave, who tested positive
in ’89. Still, after praying and pondering on the matter,
she decided to go for it.
Love at first bark ensued. “When I first saw him, he
came running up to me,” says Olave of her tricolored
Max. “He had hazel eyes, and I thought, ‘Gosh,
me and this dog are going to have a good experience together.’
And that’s just what’s happened.”
Over the year, not-so-mad Max has taught Olave patience and
responsibility. She’s taught him to sit and stay, even
sans leash. Most important, Max is a good companion to Olave—and
a link to best friend Brue, who died shortly after giving
her the spaniel.
“I live by myself, and with Max, I’m not alone,”
she says. “He brings me a lot of serenity and peace.”
E-mail Vanessa and Max at volave@bellsouth.net.
CREATURE COMFORTS
Check out these resources for HIVer-friendly pet help:
* The CDC’s Healthy Pets, Healthy People website (www.cdc.gov/
healthypets/index.htm) has a special English/Spanish HIVers’
section—with state-
by-state links and phone numbers for Pets Are Wonderful Support
(PAWS), Pets Are
Loving Support (PALS) and other groups that help sick HIVers
keep their pets.
* The American Veterinary Medical Association offers great
info on pet health
atwww.avma.org/careforanimals/default.asp
* Mourning a pet? Talking about it helps. Call the ASPCA’s
Pet Loss Hotline at
800.946.4646, enter 140-7211, then your phone number (with
area code), and a
bereavement specialist will call you right back.
DOGS ON IT!
Robert Jackson’s service dog, Duke, is more than a
buddy—he’s a Lassie-level lifesaver. Jackson,
50, a former movie projectionist from Dallas who tested positive
in 1987, got the 80-pound, mixed-breed dog about five years
ago, while
suffering from HIV-related dementia. (He already had a pet
dog, Rusty.) Duke was supposed to help him negotiate traffic
and other daily routines.
But as combination therapy cleared Jackson’s dementia,
Duke’s responsibilities increased: About 15 months ago,
Jackson began having terrible seizures (his doctors think
they’re HIV-related). Duke wasn’t trained to work
specifically with epileptics, but Jackson says Duke can predict
his seizures as much as an hour in advance—and alerts
him by whining or pawing at him. That prompts Jackson to take
his anti-convulsant medication. If the medication doesn’t
work, Duke uses his immense weight to immobilize his owner.
“He’ll physically lie across me,” Jackson
marvels— and swears that 50-pound Rusty, also a mutt,
has stepped up to assist Duke. Rusty now lies across Jackson’s
lower body while Duke takes the chest.
Jackson says Duke has saved him in several dangerous situations,
such as dragging him out of a crowded street when a seizure
struck him unconscious. Now the two are taking on Dallas Area
Rapid Transit (DART) for prohibiting Duke from its buses and
light rail on grounds that it only allows service dogs for
the blind. Jackson says he hopes his lawyer will soon reach
a settlement with DART that will “stop discrimination
against anyone who uses a service animal.” That, he
beams, would be “a really important victory”—and
Rusty and Duke, whom Jackson says he counts among his closest
friends, will be there right beside him to share it. If, that
is, they’re not on top of him.
CHARLOTTE’S WEBSITES
Sniff out these critter-cally acclaimed cyberspots:
* www.aspca.com The website of the venerable American Society
for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals will direct you to the pet of your dreams
via animal
shelters and SPCAs near you. There’s also pet-care tips
galore and animal-rights
news and campaign info.
* www.peta.org If the mainstream ASPCA is the amfAR of animal
rights, People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals is its ACT UP, with a string
of controversial
PR coups to its credit—like billboards imagining Christ
as a vegetarian, or
“prince of peas.” Its website posts what it deems
animal abuses everywhere—and
tells you whom to call to protest.
* www.pets-in-the-news.com Kitty survives Twin Towers disaster!
Dog saves boy
from rattlesnake! Real-life headlines both heroic and hokey,
along with pets in
fashion, politics, Hollywood and more.
* hometown.aol.com/prayersforpets/home.html Is your favorite
furry friend ill?
Tell the good folks here and they’ll pray for him or
her. The site’s
nonsectarian, but its “pet saint” is, of course,
creature-lovin’ Francis of
Assisi.
* www.thedogpark.com Find a dog park—plus endless other
pet-related sites and
services—in any city.
* www.funny-pets.com And they are. Yours, too, can spread
the love and the
laughs—just post a pic.
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