Cuddling with Lenore can be dangerous

I sometimes think there was a secret meeting, and law, medicine, politics, the military and media all merged to create one enormous Fear System to keep us on edge and addicted to information and ideas that are bad for us and our health. I think they call it the United States.

You might think that one small bit of comfort and balm you can depend on in our world is cuddling up with your dog and cat, especially in bed on a bitter winter’s night. How many times – this morning, I recall – have I awakened to Lenore’s big head on my shoulder and her sweet eyes fastened on mine, and how much incalculable love and comfort that has given me, especially on those nights when I was frightened and very alone. How I love to hold this dog and feel her strengthening love and devotion. I have to tell you, on some bleak nights it kept me going. She kept love alive for me until I could find it, and I owe her the world for that.

Well, the Fear Machine has decided that this is not only unhealthy, but possibly fatal. The Center for Disease Control has just issued a study, widely reported on Web MD  (under the heading of “health news”) and other places warning that the “cuddly pets” you sleep with harbor “icky germs, worms and cooties.” And for good measure, adds the California Department of Health, which helped with the study,  they also carry fleas that transmit bubonic plague. So they can kill you as well as make you ill. The study reports that 44 per cent of plague survivors slept with their pet dog.

The CDC warns that up to 56 per cent of dog owners and 62 per cent of cat owners regularly fall asleep with their pets in bed, so even though this may provide “psychological comfort,” warns the CDC, there are also risks. And this is a study you helped pay for, as you will undoubtedly pay for the remedies.

You have to shake your head if you think about this. Why do they think so many people sleep with dogs and cats? Because it’s unhealthy?

You can get fleas from a dog or cat just by walking near them, or petting them for sure, or walking on carpets where they sleep. Should we abolish pets? Lock them in basements? Put them in antiseptic bubbles? Or perhaps buy more stuff.

And what of the health benefits of having pets to be with at night? Of sleeping better. Feeling safer, or more connected. Every day, I find more reasons to reject the increasingly insane American notion that we can and must be protected from all of the risks in the world – usually at great costs, involving much medication, surgical procedures or various kinds of insurance.  Hemingway was right. If he did what the doctors told him he ought to do to live longer, it wasn’t the kind of life he would really want to live.

How sad to live in a culture where the people we need to trust the most are becoming the most dangerous to trust?

Lenore is staying in bed at night.