Unconditional Love

Love--not our pets--is the most important health tonic we have. Pets tend to be nature's most potent source of unconditional love. Touch a beloved pet and your blood pressure will likely fall. Touch another human and it's likely to go up!

Pets give elderly or lonely people a reason to function and hold onto reality and a sense of purpose beyond themselves. Pets help humans cope with losses in life. When change is unwelcome--as in the diagnosis of a chronic illness--we even turn to our pets for comfort. Except when the beloved pet is the source of a chronic health problem.

Let's face it: It's normal to love a pet, and it's normal to grieve the loss of a pet.

The decision to find a new home for a beloved dog, cat, hamster, bird, iguana, rabbit, or other pet is rarely made without some degree of emotional trauma in the family. Pet allergies force us to prioritize our values, commit to decisions we'd rather not make, and change familiar habits.

It seems obvious that the health of the child or adult with pet allergies would take priority over the emotional attachment of having the pet. After all, asthma--whether diagnosed as mild, moderate, or severe--is a potentially life-threatening condition, one that claims nearly 6,000 lives each year. Allergies are a major contributing factor for 85-90 percent of all people with asthma.

But life just isn't that simple. Some people find it easier to believe that the doctor is crazy, the mother is an animal-hater, the father is mean, the husband doesn't care, the child will be emotionally damaged--or to simply ignore the symptoms--than to face the problem and seek ways to solve it. In this case, we have to ask, what is it that the pet provides that is worth risking the health of a loved family member? Heed the words of young adults with broken hearts, some who are angry with parents who smoked or kept pets in the home throughout their childhood.

"I wonder how much better my asthma would be today if only they'd cared enough to make these sacrifices for me!"

"It's hard for me to relate to my father. He didn't believe I was allergic to his dogs and thought my mother just enjoyed taking me to the doctor all the time. How heartless is that?"

Even in the best of marriages, couples often bang heads on how to deal with pet issues in a rational way. The health of the family member with asthma or allergies must always come first but this person may be the one trying to hang on to the pet harder than anyone else. That's understandable. After all, losing the pet would be confirmation of the chronic illness.

Constantly taking antihistamines, using topical nasal and inhaled corticosteroids, and running a HEPA air filter in every room while keeping the pet isn't the answer, either. While these steps may provide temporary relief, they can't fix the immune system or the problem of finding a new home for your pet. Eventually, it will take more medication to control or prevent symptoms and treat the resulting long-term damage. As medications are increased, so are unwanted medication side effects.

Sometimes the biggest stumbling block for families is trying to find a loving home for their pet. If you are lucky, a neighbor will adopt your pet and give your family "visitation" rights. But for most people, good homes can be located through a variety of nonprofit animal associations such as:

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
www.bestfriends.org

Friends for Life Animal Sanctuary
www.azfriends.org

House Rabbit Society
www.rabbit.org

Kitten Rescue
www.kittenrescue.org

Animal Home
www.animalhome.com

Make an appointment to talk with your allergist about all your options. Finding a new home for a pet is not always necessary. But be prepared: The sacrifices of time, money, and energy invested in allergy proofing and constant cleaning, pet washings, restricting the pet to safe areas of the home, and managing the medical bills and stress on the family are difficult to estimate. It may not be worth the effort, particularly when the end result may be that you must find a new home for your pet anyway. Pets can heal a broken heart but they can wreak havoc with the immune system, too.

Only you can make the ultimate decision for yourself or your family. We can only promise it won't be easy either way.

Reprinted from the Spring 2000 issue of AANMA's Allergy & Asthma Health magazine. Special thanks to Why We Love The Dogs We Do, by Stanley Coren, for some of the information contained in this article.