Ups and Downs of FIP in Cats; Sleeping with Your Dog; Rats and the Pandemic, all on WGN Radio

Dr. Julie Levy

Dr. Niels Pedersen

Listen HERE to this weeks standout WGN Radio show Steve Dale’s Pet World because my first guest is Dr. Julie Levy, Fran Marino Professor of Shelter Medicine Education at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program. Dr. Levy has her name of more cat health studies than there is catnip on the planet. Her passion for cats is clear, and these days her frustration. Through the Every Cat Health Foundation (formerly Winn Feline Foundation) and many years of funded studies, a disease call feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) has been figured out (yes it took years to even understand this coronavirus causing illness), and today an actual treatment. As a result this once automatically fatal disease is now officially considered treatable. This was announced at a symposium in 2019 hosted by University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and Winn Feline Foundation, and the most passionate researcher of FIP of all, Dr. Niels Pedersen, professor emeritus at UC Davis.

The frustrating part of all this – in the U.S., the drug to treat FIP is only available through the ‘black market’ online, greatly from China.

If it wasn’t for the studies on FIP in cats, we talk about how that let to the conditional approval of Remdesivir to treat COVID-19 caused by SARS CoV-2 in humans. Simultaneously, in Australia, Remdesivir is being used to treat FIP with no legal barrier.

Sleep with Your Dog?

Check it out HERE, McKenzie Dillon is a Sleep Coach for MySlumberYard.com. First, she explains what it is that a sleep coach does.

According to their recent survey, a surprising number of people prefer to sleep with their dog than their partner, and she explains why.  I touch on the fact that going back around 40,000 years humans slept with dogs (or actually wolf/dogs evolving into dogs).  

So, does the sleep expert recommend sleeping with a pet or pets?

Oh Rats!

City rats have adjusted during the pandemic – that could mean even more leptospirosis, a bacterial infection which can sicken dogs.