Health Risks Associated With Animal Hoarding
Having pets at your home can prove a fantastic experience for you. Pets are like your companions and bring comfort and joy to your life. Moreover, having pets at your home can boost your overall health and reduce mood swings.
Numerous hospitals use animals to cheer their patients and improve their desire to get healthy again. Pets can provide you with multiple benefits in your life, but some animals are usually risky. Animals can create a lot of mess, and if they are not happy, they might try to vocalize in a way that we typically refer to as bad behavior.
These destructive behaviors of animals can cause various health issues for you and your family. Danger to your health also increases when you are hoarding animals.
Hoarding animals means that you cannot provide them with the necessities of living. These necessities include food, shelter, freedom, sanitization, and socialization. If you cannot provide the necessities of living to your animal, you should not keep them as pets.
There are some people who horde the animals to resell. Hoarding cases sometimes become severe in which the owner keeps the animals in cages stacked upon one another. Moreover, the owners usually don’t provide a clean environment as the animals stay in their urine and excrement.
Animals usually kept in hoarding might become malnourished. Therefore, if you find animals in hoarding, you should take help from animal hoarding rescue.
However, if you are the one who is hoarding animals, keep in mind that hoarding animals will not only harm them but will also affect your health. This article will discuss a few health risks of hoarding animals. Let’s Look at them one by one.
The urine of the Animals
Animals like cats contain ammonia in their urine which can cause damage to your respiratory system. Moreover, if you have asthma and allergies, staying in a room full of odor might trigger your allergies. The urine of animals can create burning sensations in your eyes and nose.
One or two animals usually don’t produce enough ammonia. However, they might affect your health if you leave them untreated. Similarly, if you are hoarding cats and don’t clean them properly, you might cause issues for yourself and your family.
Feces and Vomit
Vomit, blood, and feces of animals can be hazardous for you. The reason is that the blood of animals contains pathogens and can become a reason for sickness in humans. Similarly, vomit and feces of animals contain bacteria and can make you sick.
Therefore, if you have a pet that vomits or bleeds, you must clean after them properly. Moreover, you must ensure that you are removing the stains properly.
Animals Scratches and Bites
Animals might seem clean outside, but they walk all over the floor and use a litter box. Moreover, animals go out as well and can bring bacteria with them. The bacteria in their paws and claws can harm you when you get a scratch from the animals.
The bacteria touching your skin due to animal scratches might cause you to get infected and make you sick. Similarly, the bite of an animal during playing can be enough to break your skin and cause bacteria from their mount to enter your skin.
The solution to Save Yourself from Health Risks Caused by Animals
Following are a few solutions that you can use to save yourself from the risks mentioned above.
Regular Cleaning of Litter Box
By cleaning the litter box regularly, you can reduce the amount of bacterial growth. Moreover, you can also buy a self-cleaning letterbox. These litter boxes stay clean even if you forget to clean them.
Moreover, these litter boxes prevent the cats from going outside and bringing harmful bacteria inside the house. Another thing you can do is to provide good quality food and a lot of water access to the animals. It might help them have a healthy bowel movement and prevent them from going outside the house.
Buy Enzyme Cleaners
A benefit of buying enzyme cleaners is that they can clean vomit, blood, and animal feces without leaving any bacteria behind. With the use of enzyme cleaners, you can clean the area and make it safe to use again.
Follow all the instructions written on the cleaner and clean the area properly. Moreover, you can also use a steamer to clean the site regularly. It will ensure that your environment is safely sanitized not only for you but also for your pets.
Bandages and Alcohol Swaps
When you have alcohol swaps, you can quickly clean the wounded area and put a bandage on it. In this way, you can save yourself from the wound getting infected. However, to keep in mind, some doctors don’t recommend using alcohol to clean a wound. Moreover, they usually recommend water and a little bit of soap instead.
A Toy for Scratching
You can find scratching posts in any pet store near you. By placing the scratching posts near the piece of furniture, you can save it from cat scratches. Moreover, you can apply an attractive scent to it, motivating the animals to use the scratching post instead of the furniture.
Place Mats Under Water Bowl
By placing a mat under the water bowl, you can save your wood and carpet from water. Another thing you can do is to buy the mat with a lip. In this way, if the water does spill, it doesn’t go past the mat. Another thing you can do to avoid water spill is to buy a large fountain type of bowl that keeps running and filter the water to keep it clean. Such water fountains are heavy for the cats to spill the water.
Bottom Line
In this article, we discussed the health benefits of animal hoarding and how to prevent health risks. However, if you are taking all the precautionary measures and your animal is still showing lousy behavior, this is to train them to reduce their destructive behaviors.
However, if you don’t have enough idea about giving training to your animals, you can search different videos online. YouTube can help you by providing various tips on animal training.