School District looks to ban teacher's pets

[The Straight Story]

Perham-Dent School District looks to ban teacher's pets

PERHAM (Minnesota) — Critters and kids are the focus of a new policy that is expected to be approved by the Perham-Dent School Board this month.

For kids in the Perham elementary school, it means that the beloved “school dog” Murphy will no longer be free to roam the premises. Allergies and related health issues are the motives behind the school board policy.

“We all love Murphy,” said elementary school Principal Kari Yates at the October Perham school board meeting. “Delivering the news to the students was one of the hardest things I’ve done as a principal...Murphy was a phenomenal addition to the school.”

The policy essentially bans animals as “classroom pets.” The policy concludes “the most effective method to controlling exposure to animal allergens in schools is to keep schools free of feathered or furred animals.”

Murphy is a three year old golden retriever mix and has served as official school therapy dog for the past three and a half years. He was only six weeks old when he first came to school with fourth grade teacher Marcia McEachran. Murphy completed his AKC Canine Good Citizen training at a year and a half, and passed his official Delta Therapy Dog Training this past May.

http://www.dl-online.com/event/article/id/48966/

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. When I was a child in Saskatchewan in the '60s, I never knew of any kids who were allergic to

dogs and cats, and now dog and cat allergies are rampant. I wonder why that is?

My suspicion is that a substantial number of these allergic people simply don't like dogs and cats, and they're afraid if they come out and admit it, the rest of us will think they're dreadful. So "allergies" are a convincing cover for today.

This is not to say that it's true in all cases. Just more than one might imagine.

[vadawg]

2. lol i can believe that, my wife claims shes allergic to cats, but she also hates them with a passion

so that could explain a lot...

[theHandpuppet]

3. There seem to be more allergies in general

Like you, I never knew any kids who were allergic to cats or dogs. Nor did I know of any kids who were allergic to peanuts, milk products, gluten et al.

[LeftyMom]

4. Many of those allergies were probably just not diagnosed.

I have a dairy allergy. As a child I was diagnosed with everything but, given all sorts of interesting drugs for digestive diseases I don't have, including some that wrecked my baby teeth and resulted in a few grand worth of silver caps, treated for breathing troubles that turned out to be totally allergy related, etc. Same thing happened with my two of my older cousins.

[pnwmom]

9. Doctors in the U.S. were taught that Celiac (gluten intolerance) was a rare disease. It was only

fairly recently that they realized that since it was common in Europe, it was probably common here in people of European descent. Then they developed better tests for it and proved that was the case. It was always around, though -- often the children would get a diagnosis of "failure to thrive" and an adult would be told s/he had "irritable bowel." (President John Kennedy likely had it -- some of the clues include his childhood "failure to thrive", his "wheat allergy," and his Addison's disease.)

Other allergies are on the increase. One theory is that today's relatively clean houses leave fewer germs for our bodies to attack -- leaving the body's immune system to attack itself. Another theory is that the decrease in intestinal worms has led to a higher incidence of allergies.

[theHandpuppet]

16. Very interesting

What is the connection between intestinal worms and allergies?

[pnwmom]

19. Same as the germ theory, basically. That the body is designed

to attack invaders, like germs and worms, and that in the absence of these invaders, the immune system turns on the body itself.

[noamnety]

5. There's a correlation, but not for that reason.

My husband doesn't like cats, he's allergic to them - and it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that he's using it as an excuse. But I've seen the hives on him when they've interacted.

When parents don't like pets, they don't have them, and they pass on their social attitudes to their kids, creating folks like my husband who wasn't raised with them and doesn't like them. But - it also meant he wasn't exposed to them as a baby, which increases the odds (by 70%!) that he'll be allergic to them.

On top of that, the excessive "modern" focus on sanitizing everything from countertops to our own skin has changed our immunity levels.

"When our bodies immune system has very little to do because we keep our environment too sanitized and clean, the immune system starts lowering its threshold of activation. That means the immune system kicks in at the least provocation and you have higher sensitivity to allergens which causes allergic response. It is even said that this same mechanism is partly to cause for arthritis in many cases. The immune system actually attacks our joints because it has little else to do."

source - http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/30084/pets/do_multiple_pets_increase_risk_of_child_allergy.html

[Skidmore]

6. My daughter and I are both allergic to cats and one of her children is too.

She has a more severe allergy than I do, one which will trigger asthma for her. Yes, there are people who are sensitive to the dander these animals carry. We don't allow parents to provide treats with peanuts in them at school because of the presence of children with peanut allergies. Is it permissible to make even one child who has allergic reactions to animal dander sick by exposing then on a daily basis to such contact? Or is that child to just stay home from school?

[ET Awful]

7. Makes you wonder how much of the allergy problem stems from feeding the animals

worse and worse crap and calling it "food", or from all the chemicals that are dumped on man and animal (how many are actually allergic to the flea and tick drops on the dog or cat and not the dog or cat itself?

[jmowreader]

11. I was thinking the same thing: it's the chemicals, not necessarily the animal

30 years ago we didn't have flea drops for pets, we had to either wash the dog in flea shampoo or just let the poor bastard chew the fleas off himself like dogs have done since there were dogs. Now? "Dose your dog with Advantage!" Which means the dog excretes chemicals through its skin 24/7. Same deal with all the household cleaning supplies.

I don't use flea products and don't have a flea problem--the cats are very good at getting rid of any fleas that might appear on them, which is seldom.

[MattBaggins]

13. Let them chew their way to tape worms

then give them chemicals for that instead.

[BanzaiBonnie]

8. As we become more and more sanitary in our environments

we are experiencing more and more immune system disorders. And that means allergies to animals as well as allergic reactions to our own bodies with our immune system attacking US!

All the gut bugs we are supposed to have AND some other parasites have been with us for so long that without them we are getting sick.

Some of the most recent research has to do with Crohn's disease and other IBS problems.

Overzealous cleaning of the environment prevents the human immune system from interacting with worms, bacteria and other pathogens necessary for it to develop properly...Yes! Doctors at the University of Iowa are testing whether a treatment regimen of worms may help patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

The worm research represents perhaps the most extreme example of a field known as probiotics: the use of living organisms to treat diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and other organs.

Dr. Joel Weinstock and colleagues conducted a study wherein 20 to 30 patients were given a mixture of 1,500 eggs of the helminth or parasitic worm.

Most of the patients did so well on the therapy they were able to throw away their other drugs, including steroids, which can have serious side effects. The symptoms returned when the patients stopped drinking the mixture said Weinstock, professor of internal medicine.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/WORM-21-WORM-21-all-the-way-264-1/

[MattBaggins]

12. Or it could just be the ability to diagnose with blood tests

but hey why let logic get in the way of wild speculation.

[surrealAmerican]

10. Do they get to have a school python now?

Children do gain something from interacting with animals.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[B3Nut]

18. A ball python or corn snake

would be a great class snake for a science teacher so inclined. Docile, easy to handle, and easy to care for, they make great educational animals. What's a biology class without some really cool animals? Snakes are great illustrators of evolution.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[LWolf]

14. Therapy dogs can be a great addition to schools.

Perhaps there's a less extreme solution for the allergic.

[GoneOffShore]

15. Ah, allergies - Just got back from France

Interesting to find that one never hears people batting on about allergies in Europe.

[Romulox]

20. ?

:shrug: