Human-Animal Connections:

Animals make our lives better in many ways. For example, we know that just petting a dog or cat or watching fish in an aquarium can reduce our stress levels. Some therapy animals help ease the pain of PTSD or hospital stays, while others provide assistance for children with allergies or autism. Service animals make everyday living easier for people with physical challenges. Learn more about how the lives…and health…of animals and humans are interconnected.

Dogs can make you happier

January 24, 2012 | Julie Ciaramella | Leave a comment

In news that every dog owner already knows, dogs make you happier, reduce stress and anxiety, and provide other benefits to your health. Petting a dog produces a hormone called oxytocin, which helps to reduce stress and anxiety. It’s the same hormone new mothers get a boost of after giving birth. There’s even some evidence that higher levels of oxytocin help people heal faster.

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One Health Headlines: Friday, January 20, 2012

January 20, 2012 | Michael San Filippo | Leave a comment

This week’s One Health roundup has updates on human cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Southeast Asia, a look at research underway on an experimental drug that could help injured dogs (and possibly humans) walk again, video showing how studying a snake’s slither could lead to better search-and-rescue robots, and much more.

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Animals have their own form of social networking

January 12, 2012 | Julie Ciaramella | Leave a comment

As the AVMA’s resident social media person, I’m interested in all aspects of social media and communication: how people connect, why they connect, what they’re sharing, what networks they’re using, and how useful these networks are. So it was with a lot of delight that I read animals have social networks, too. No, your dog isn’t on Facebook in his spare time, even though there’s a cat that tweets and orangutans that play with iPads. The comparison to human social networks has more to do with how we communicate than with what platforms we’re using.

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One Health Headlines: Friday, January 6, 2012

January 6, 2012 | Michael San Filippo | Leave a comment

At the beginning of this week Massachusetts health officials announced the first human case of rabies reported in the state since 1935. It was later determined that the victim was infected by a little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus). This follows last month’s announcement out of South Carolina that a woman died after contracting rabies, that state’s first human case of rabies in half a century.

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One Health Headlines: Friday, December 30, 2011

December 30, 2011 | Michael San Filippo | Leave a comment

A sad story out of South Carolina, where a woman believed to have been bitten by a bat died from rabies, the first human case in the state in more than 50 years. It’s an unfortunate reminder that, although rare, rabies remains a deadly zoonotic threat in the United States.

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