chins playing with other pets

[Megan]

I am not being snarky, but being honest. They suggest handfeeding, but I really doubt they go out of their way to handfeed kits. We suggest quarentine --honestly quarentine should be done after a vet visit, after leaving the home...how many of us do it?

 

[Luci]

i would think that putting chins in an environment for an unnecessary purpose (be it interacting with other species or taking them somewhere) still poses a risk. bacteria can be passed directly (through contact) or be airborne. when i first joined, i learned that chins had very sensitive respiratory tracts (i dusted with a scented dust bath, which peggy informed me wasnt a good idea).

a lot of things aren't "necessary". to avoid the risk of any disease or unwanted accident, keep chins where they are and keep their environment safe. :thumbsup:

 

[ticklechin]

I give up, its going to be one of those issues......

 

[chexy114]

I don't know why the people who let their dogs into the same room as their chins are getting bashed on here. There might be a risk of bacteria, but hey going to the grocery store puts you at risk for a car accident. If you have the luxury to put your chins in a separate room then more power to you, but some just don't have the finances or the ability to dedicate that much space to one animal/species. I only have one chin and I'm not going to buy a house with an extra room in it just because my dog might get near my chins cage. (Not that i have a dog...but I plan on getting one someday)

I don't really think the issue is about whether you love your chins enough...if I had the money I'd give my little Momiji his own room, but that is never going to happen.

With breeders maybe it's a different story, and I don't know too much about breeding. I don't depend on Momiji for income, and if breeding was my passion I probably would set aside a room or a basement or barn for them and be strict about exposure. But as far as pets go I think for many of us it's just simply impractical to dedicate a quarantined area for our beloved critters, and I think people on here have been a little harsh on the subject.

As far as actually playing together, I think everyone agrees that it's a big no-no.

 

[Christina Noraas]

My chins are in my room because it's the only room that is not occupied by cats or that they can get into, a lot of the doors to the rooms of our house do not latch so it's easy for the cats to enter. The only rooms that do have doors that latch correctly is the bathroom, my room, the basement, and the entry way door.

The bathroom is unsanitary as it is and my cage would not fit, you can barely turn around in our bathroom from the bathtub to the toilet and the sink are all parallel to one another and are less than two feet away.

The basement constantly floods, is the hottest room in the house because of the wood stove, when we really get wood pumping in there it can reach up to 100 degrees in the basement, plus with the general dampness, dust, animal fur, cobwebs, HUGE spiders (like as big as my palm once :vomit: but we got that fixed) during the spring snakes come up through the piping. My house is just old.

The entry way is probably cool enough and possibly big enough but it has no air conditioning and absolutely no heating, there is frost in the walls sometimes during the winter.

My room is the only way I can regulate temperature with a window condtioner and the heat from the wood stove doesn't really reach my room because the fan is weak the only time I get serious heat coming to my room is when the furnace is working with isn't often. I can regulate what and whom goes into my room.
The handel is broken and if you shift it a certian way it basically locks to the point where the 2 year old in the house can't figure it out. My dog follows me every where, he is a rescue and was found almost dead on the side of the road, he's clung to me ever since we got him and I can't help that. The few times that the chins are out Freddy is laying in the room with them he follows them around to check out what they're doing then lays down in the closet where his bed is and stays there if Freddy gets up the chinchillas run to the cage.
I rotate them so that which ever one is out that day is on the bottom of the cage. So to put it this way when Rex's turn to play outside of the cage comes. I take him from the top half of the cage if that's where he's at, at the time put him in the carrier, put Penelope in the top half secure the door and let him out and go at it, and vis versa.
Freddy is a herding dog, he knows when to chase and when to leave the animals alone. Every once in a while he'll herd a chinchilla to the cage when he sees be picking stuff up. It's not a full blown chase it's just following behind them until they go into the cage, both the dog and the chinchilla are perfectly calm about it.
The cats are not allowed any where near my room to what I can control when I see them going near my door they're promptly manuvered back down stairs. The one time Rex got out, Freddy herded the cats to the basement.
And no this is not training, he automatically herded cattle when we first got him, not always where we wanted but he did it none the less. The only thing we had to teach him is when to stop, go, and sit to guard the cattle pens so none escaped when feeding or bedding.



Just to point this out, until recently I didn't even know chinchillas and cats COULD transmit dangerous diseases; it wasn't until I got pink eye and asked if it was transmitable that I knew that they could get diseases from humans. I knew that they could get a disease from rabbits after I first joined because I was looking for a cage that could be used as a maturnity cage for Penelope because she was believed to be pregnant at the time and I was warned by a member that I should be cautious about using rabbit cages because of this so I made sure I got a cage that was still in box and never used.

I'm just saying don't always jump on every one who isn't an expert on transmitable diseases to and from chinchillas, I get that it can be frusterating but ya know not every one knows everything. Or atleast that's what I was picking up from a few people that posted before me is that they didn't have any idea what so ever. However they should listen to you guys.

ETA: Sorry for the long post.

 

[Laurie]

I have owned cats my whole adult life and I have never, EVER had a cat get up on a kitchen table or a counter.

 

[tunes]

Don't chins have just as much chance from contracting that bacteria from you as they do from dogs/cats/guinea pigs, etc? I mean, unless you keep your chins in a sterile room, and go through a severe hazmat process, they're going to come into contact with those bacteria anyway through either the air or your hands/clothes/hair/breath. Isn't it the same basic concept as with humans - if you don't allow them some interaction with bacteria, they're more likely to die from it because they have weak immune systems - ?

I wash my hands between EVERY species. If i handle my cats and hold them against me, yes, I change my clothes. If I touch my birds, I wash my hands before I touch any other animal. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp? I have thousands upon thousands of dollars invested in my chins. Aside from the fact that I care about them very much, I'm not willing to flush a ton of money down the toilet because I'm too lazy to take proper precautions when handling different species.

The rest of this post is just a general post, not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. Ever been to a vet before? They see lots of species. What's the first thing they do when they enter a room? They wash their hands. If they had handled an animal that had the potential to pass illness to another animal, you can bet you butt they would change clothes.

No, my house is not in a plastic bubble. I do not keep my animals segregated with separate air filtering systems. I feel like this is getting nit picky and not a little bit stupid. The point here was EXPOSURE, as in face to face, touching, fluids being exchanged, specifically when the chins are outside of their cage. What it's degenerated into is a pissing contest over this breeder does it this way (and I have been in a number of large breeder barns, and not a single one of them had a cat in them, BTW, or a dog) and that pet owner does it that way. Frankly, I don't care. But I have lost a large number of my herd to illness in the past. When you've walked in my shoes, and watched a large number of your animals die painful deaths, then you can make snarky remarks. As for me, I'll just keep being careful of my animals so I don't put them into any danger because I'm too pigheaded to think I might be wrong.

Littlechinta, I'm going to reiterate what Laura already stated. Start using proper punctuation and drop the internet speak. It makes me, and pretty much everyone else, not want to read your posts. It's just too confusing and hard to follow.

 

[CTChin]

.

The rest of this post is just a general post, not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. Ever been to a vet before? They see lots of species. What's the first thing they do when they enter a room? They wash their hands. If they had handled an animal that had the potential to pass illness to another animal, you can bet you butt they would change clothes.

I wish that were true. I worked at two different animal hospitals. Maybe they did some hand washing but changing clothes rarely happened. I remember one customer who insisted the vet I worked for got her cat sick. She nagged him every time he came in the room afterward to make sure he washed his hands. This is one of the many reasons I will no longer work for a vet.

I know there are good vets out there. I just wasn't lucky enough to work for any.

 

[tunes]

It's true of every vet I use Brenda. I would not go to a vet that did not wash his/her hands when they come into the room or before they handle my pets. I would find another vet. It's the reason I refuse to use the local vet at all for animals. I only get supplies there. They are nice folks, but they aren't for me when it comes to my critters.

 

[Riven]

My yorkie occassionaly goes into the chin house with me when I go to feed, etc. I've had the outside cats run in and look around before, but to me this is totally differnt than people who actually let their pets play together, which is what I believe this thread is about. The kind that let the chin out and crawl on the dog.

I do not change my clothes before going into or out of my chin house, I'm in and out several times a day, I'd have no clean clothes to wear. I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go into the house where my three dogs and three cats live, I'm going to come into contact with at least one of them the second I come in because they wait for me to come back in.

I have my pet chins that live in the house. They are in the office, two of my dogs also sleep in their kennels in my office.

I'm not saying let your chins play with your dogs and cats, but if you keep all of your pets healthy and vaccinated, then you shouldn't have a lot to be concerned about. I get sick more often than my dogs or cats do each year, so I'm probably more likely to get my chins sick than they are. If you know you have a cat with FLV, you don't it play with other cats. If you know your puppy has parvo, you don't let it play with other dogs. But I can't live my life with a room for each different kind of animal in my house "just in case" on the odd chance. Am I concerned my cats are going to give my chins something? No. Could it happen? Anything is possible. If my cats where inside outside cats, maybe I'd be worried. When I hand feed or have a sick chin, it comes into the house so it's with me all of the time.

Do I let my barn cats paw in my chin cages, of course not. I think there is a difference between logical preventation, and illogical fears.

If you kept a chin locked away in a sterile envirnoment and took it out, it would die of some piddley little thing. If animals are never exposed to anything, they will never have any kind of immunity. There are tons of things that chins come into contact everyday. I'd worry more about mice than other household pets. How do we know a diseased mouse didn't urinate all over the shavings before they were packed? I doubt any feed mill is considered sterile either. If we're going to worry about what my dog might be carrying as it walks past the chin cage, then perhaps we should be freaking out about what's in or on the supplies we put right in their cages.

 

[RDZCRanch]

With breeders maybe it's a different story, and I don't know too much about breeding. I don't depend on Momiji for income, and if breeding was my passion I probably would set aside a room or a basement or barn for them and be strict about exposure.

I don't know why this always comes up with newer members. If I depended on my chinchillas for income...I'd have starved by now. The only point I was trying to make is that caution is never a bad thing. Why is it so absolutely, completely difficult to keep your animals from physically interacting? When I didn't have a separate room for the chins, you bet I had a barrier to keep the other animals away.

As far as vet not washing their hands...that's a bad vet. The vet I work for and all of his staff either wash our hands the moment a client leaves or we at least use hand sanitizer...or we'll do both. If we have a parvo dog, we have surgical gowns and gloves that we put on to handle and care for them. EVERYWHERE that the parvo dog or infectious dog went gets straight bleached immediately after the dog/cat/animal is moved. This should be common practice in veterinary offices...if it's not, don't go there. It's pretty common for states to have laws where veterinary offices MUST have a quarantine area and they MUST practice regular quarantine procedures. Veterinary medicine is in place to prevent the spread of disease from animals. A vet that doesn't do that obviously isn't keeping to the oaths he made when he became a veterinarian.

 

[Riven]

If I depended on my chinchillas for income...I'd have starved by now.

So THAT is why I've been losing weight! I think if most breeders depended on that income to just buy feed and shavings their chins would starve too, lol.

 

[tunes]

Yeah, I definitely depend on my chins for income. That's how I was able to buy that spanky new moped sitting in my driveway. Yee-haw. <rolls eyes>

Whether your chins are pets or strictly a business shouldn't matter. The safety of the animal in question should always come first. As stated above by many people, nobody keeps their chins in a sterile environment. First it would be impossible and second it would be impractical. This thread was about someone letting their chins run around with their dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and whatever other animal they had running amok in their house at the time the chin was loose.

Something else nobody seems to have considered here, is that chins are prey animals. They are the bottom of the food chain. A rat could take down a chin in nothing flat. So while YOU think they are all "awwww cute, kitty wuvs rubbing noses with little Fluffy the chin", put yourself in the chin's shoes. You have just shoved a predator in his face. How do you think that makes them feel? Time and again we've had people come on and show videos or pictures of their chin "playing" with the cat or dog, only to discover after people watched them that the chin wasn't attacking the larger animal to play, it was fighting for it's life. It doesn't matter that the dog wasn't attacking the chin. It matters what the chins perception of the dog was.

 

[starleomach]

my dog follows me into the chinchilla room. I kick her out especially if i am opening cages. she is old and has shown no interest in the chinchillas in years, but when they were in my bedroom years ago one got loose, she smacked him with her paws killing him, she didn't do it to be agressive it was the same move she used on a ball. now she has learned to lay in the door way, which is still more than I should allow.

The two cats are kept out. on the few ocasions I have the door open and the cats go it, the chinchillas panic, Barking and calling out alarms. Why stress them. and for the "breeder do this different" it was the same way when my chinchillas were just pets they still went on alert with the cats.

I know more than 1person who wiped out their whole herd of chinchillas, and a few who lost their pets when they got a rabbit or when a cat or dog came with bordatella. You let that in there is no treatment you watch your chinchillas die one by one with nothing you can do, Viruses have no medications they have to run their course. You treat symptoms the best you can and watch as animals die.

But hey fine they are your pets it is your choice. Keep in mind that your "healthy dog" goes outside and can pick up anything and same with your cat and those cats that don't go outside often kill wild animals etc. being exposed

and the vet not washing their hands you need a new vet really they handle all kinds of infectious diseases. It is no different than your doctor not washing his hands....Just gross an wrong on so many levels

 

[ticklechin]

Both of my vet facilities I use, if the animal has symptoms of something that could be contageous such as kennel cough as a example, the animal is left in the car until ready to be seen and taken through a separate enterance, any yes they all wash hands.

 

[CTChin]

Sometimes people don't seem to read posts very clearly. :hmm:

 

[CTChin]

But hey fine they are your pets it is your choice. Keep in mind that your "healthy dog" goes outside and can pick up anything and same with your cat and those cats that don't go outside often kill wild animals etc. being exposed

and the vet not washing their hands you need a new vet really they handle all kinds of infectious diseases. It is no different than your doctor not washing his hands....Just gross an wrong on so many levels

I'm not very eloquent at words and sometimes I have a hard time getting a point across but I'm just going to say it. Throw me off the board I don't care. o.k. I care a little lol. I do understand that these posts are not just directed at me but I am feeling some heat because of my previous posts...

Between chins n' quills and here I've been around chins for years and years. A lot of people don't know me because I don't make all the shows and breed high end chinchillas...in fact I no longer breed. Animals have been a part of my life for forever and ARE my life I really resent your insinuation that some of us are just throwing caution to the wind and don't care. My cats are inside only and my dogs mostly go out into a large enclosed area. NEVER loose. My chins are in the basement and rarely have contact with the dogs. Yes the cats do go down their but some of them have looked at chinchillas for 15 years and could care less. New pets (it's been 3 years) are always isolated and quarantined. I RARELY suffer any chinchilla loss and if I do it is because of mal. In the beginning a 100 years ago when I bought from a bad breeder in Cali, I had diarrhea issues but that hasn't occurred in years.

I have invested a lot of time, money and expense over the years into my chinchillas. They are pets first and foremost. My chinchillas get LARGE cages and come out to play because I feel that is what they need. Just because I don't confine them to small cages and put them in a plastic bubble, doesn't mean I don't care about them. Their quality of life including mental health is very important to me.

I've taken in two chins from show breeders that thought were hilarious because they do back flips in their cages all the time. I take them and put them in a 3 story cage and have not seen them flip ONCE. I don't know...I guess people care and "love" their chinchillas in different ways but I'm not going to sit back and let anyone insinuate I don't care for my chinchillas. I'm not saying I'm perfect...I've made mistakes.

Also, It was two different animal hospitals that I WORKED for that I saw issues with hand washing and no clothes changing. I hated the last vet so much that is why I no longer work for one. He not only was dirty, he was abusive and neglectful.

I'm now unemployed but if anyone would like to come on over and enclose part of my basement to make a chin room, be my guest. I may even be able to afford pizza and beer.

 

[Jenn]

I have yet to see a cat that can be "trained" to leave a small furry animal alone. Cats are hunters, it's what they do. Whether you expose them to the chins or not, once they decide to hunt there isn't squat you can do about it.

I also would never allow my cats in my chin room, just like I don't find it "cute" when a cat gets on the counter and drinks out of the sink. That is disgusting. They dig in their feces and urine to make a hole to put more feces and urine in, and the thought of that next to my chins (or on my counters, table, furniture) just makes me want to hurl.

my cats definitely aren't trained, it is usually they who train me, but I seem to have some rare and incredible cats. I used to have a hamster who would run around in a "death" ball, which we all know are unsafe, etc. This ball had a lid that apparently did not fit too well and the hamster escaped from it. I actually had him loose in the house on 3 occasions - anywhere from hours to a day - and the way I found him each time was with the help of my cats. My 2 cats would lay in the same area and just watch him. If this had only happened once, I'd say I got lucky and found my hammy in time before my cats killed him. But this happened 3 times and he was safe each time, even though the cats were with him. I don't know, either he was entertaining to the cats or they are extremely lazy!

That being said, I don't let my dogs or cats play with my chin. They can interact if they choose when she is in her playpen. The cats and dogs can come up to the playpen, but for some reason my chin doesn't amuse them much and they don't even come up to the pen to check her out. My chin is actually more interested in them than the other way around. I am home full time, and this is a safe environment for all, but I know in most situations it is best to keep any other animals totally out of reach of your chin. There is just too many things that can happen, either purposely or accidently, if you let them interact. And then you end up with either a trip to the vet, or you end up burying them. Better safe than sorry.

 

[tunes]

Brenda, I don't think anyone was directing their posts at you. Well, I answered you directly because you posted right after me, but other than that I think it was in general. No one is accusing you of not taking care of your critters. I know I wasn't.

I do, however, find it really unsettling that the vets you worked for would not wash their hands and I would not use them (as I said above). To me, if you're not clean when you touch my animals, then I'm not going to trust you to do surgery or any type of procedure on them when I can't be in the room. God only knows what else they would skip while they are out of my eyesight.

 

[Riven]

keep in mind that your "healthy dog" goes outside and can pick up anything and same with your cat and those cats that don't go outside often kill wild animals etc. being exposed

And likewise my dog can sneeze on me and although it doesn't come in I carry something in. I walk through rabbit poo of a wild rabbit carrying a disease in, a chin plays on the floor and my herd dies from pasteurella. It's odd that people consider pets more of a risk than other things.

Likewise with clothes changing, your nurse or doctor don't change between patients unless they're covered in bodily fluids, but yet we expect vets to?