DEAR READERS: Many people will be soon celebrating Easter with chocolate bunnies and decorated eggs. But please resist the temptation of purchasing a fluffy, adorable live bunny, duckling or chick for your children.

This time of ancient celebration of the return of spring and the renewal of life should not involve the suffering and death of these young creatures, all of which require proper expertise in keeping them alive and healthy. Many children learn about death not long after Easter, while burying their Easter animals. And some can infect children with Salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria and diseases.

It is best for all to stick with chocolate bunnies (in moderation). And keep dogs away from chocolate and any xylitol-sweetened consumables, which can be lethal for them.

DEAR DR. FOX: My male cat, 3 years old, recently started sneezing. A lot. And he didn’t want to play; he would pull away, like it hurt to be touched. We took him to the vet, but they said everything looked great. No temp, no congestion. They gave him an antibiotic shot and a steroid shot just in case, and five days later, he finally got better.

Now our other cat is sneezing -- a lot! Do cats catch colds? And can we do anything to help? -- D.W., Tulsa, Oklahoma

DEAR D.W.: Yes, cats do develop contagious respiratory infections, especially if they get outdoors and contact infected cats. Rarely will they get a respiratory virus, such as influenza, from people.

The most common cat viruses, rhinotracheitis, and calicivirus, can lead to secondary bacterial infections. These can include pus coming out of the nostrils and invading the sinuses, which can then lead to chronic inflammation, difficult to get rid of. More rarely, a fungal infection gets established, which can be very difficult to treat. Since the treatment given to your first cat helped, your second cat should be given the same.

I am concerned about very dusty cat litter contributing to respiratory problems in cats, and to secondary allergic reactions due to excessive grooming and fur-pulling. This possibility should always be considered, especially with indoor-only cats. Many cats spend time digging and raking and covering their excrement in their litter boxes, inhaling dust in the process and grooming it off their paws afterwards. Changing to a low-dust litter, such as paper pellets or washed sand, has helped many cats with recurrent sneezing and other adverse reactions to dusty cat litter.

XYLITOL POISONING MORE PETS AS SUGAR-FREE HUMAN FOODS ABOUND

Ingestion of chocolate, rodent poison, medications and foods containing xylitol (a popular sugar substitute) prompt the most calls to the Pet Poison Helpline, according to Embrace Pet Insurance. And xylitol poisoning is becoming more frequent as more people try to cut sugar from their diets.

Xylitol is highly toxic to animals and is a common ingredient in sugar-free gum, peanut butter, toothpaste, mouthwash, baked goods and beverages. (KSWB-TV, San Diego, 3/13/19)

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I am looking for the right dog for our young family. I have read your article “Recovering Canine Health and the Natural Dog” on your website, and a friend sent me an article about the cost and complexities of pet health insurance and a list of various breeds associated with 70 genetic disorders. Many of these disorders can cause suffering and are expensive to treat.

What advice can you offer? Some of the smaller breeds we love, but they can have so many problems! -- R.W.McC., Arlington, Virginia

DEAR R.W.McC.: My advice is to first read “Choosing to Live With a Dog” on my website (drfoxonehealth.com). Then read my review on pet health insurance.

I always advise considering adoption from a local shelter, and never buying online. If you want a particular breed, think long and hard and read all about it. Only buy a pup when you can see the parents and assess how they behave and are cared for. Also, many people do best with an older dog who is fully house-trained.

Embrace Pet Insurance has posted the top five most common conditions in dogs, and their treatment costs, based on 200,000 claims filed in 2018. They are:

-- Intestinal issues, average cost of $790

-- Allergies, $390

-- Ear infections, $290

-- Lameness, $620

-- Cranial cruciate ligament tear, $4,160

I strongly advise against people having their pups’ DNA tested and then euthanizing the dog if it carries some inherited diseases. As with our adopted dog Kota (mainly Australian red heeler), these genes are often recessive -- meaning in Kota’s case that she is a carrier, but she is very unlikely to get the disease (degenerative myelopathy) herself. If bred to a male dog with the same recessive gene for that disease, their pups would probably develop this neurological disorder.

DEAR DR. FOX: My wife and I have three Westies. One is 11 years old, the other two are puppies, at 7 months old. The two puppies go out every morning at 7:30 to pee before coming in to eat breakfast. Breakfast is canned food (vet-recommended brand) followed by going outside again to play and poop. If we don't watch them closely, they roam the yard, then go back and eat poop. They have dry food they eat any time during the day, so we don't think it is a dietary issue.

Can you enlighten us about this strange behavior of eating poop? We control it some, by doing "poopie patrol" one or two times a day to remove temptation. -- K.B., Tulsa, Oklahoma

DEAR K.B.: Dogs engage in this behavior, called coprophagia, for various reasons.

This is normal behavior for some species such as rabbits and infant koalas, who eat the partially digested feces of their mothers. Mother dogs will ingest the excrement of their pups especially during the nursing phase, which in the wild would help keep the den clean. Wolves and other wild canids may consume cubs' feces around the den until they learn to evacuate farther away.

With these thoughts in mind, I interpret coprophagia as first a cleaning-up behavior. People have told me that their dogs started eating their poop in the yard when the dogs saw their owners picking up the poop! I therefore advise people to clean up their yards with their dogs kept indoors.

But the most common reason for coprophagia is related to what the dogs are being given to eat. This opinion is based on many years responding to this issue in my column and learning what works to prevent such behavior, which does have aspects of a "vice" or "depraved appetite." Manufactured dog foods have many dietary deficiencies, and dogs on a biologically complete and balanced, whole-food, human-grade ingredient-certified content diet rarely engage in compensatory coprophagia or geophagia, or dirt-eating. Eating grass and vomiting on occasion is a perfectly normal cleansing/purging activity.

When dogs have a clear craving to eat their own or others' feces, they may be lacking essential nutrients in their diets. Many species engage in geophagia, including dogs and humans. When such a source of minerals, beneficial bacteria (probiotics) and possible enzymes and other micronutrients are not available (some kinds of soil being more attractive to animals than others), coprophagia may become the substitute. Dogs eating the feces of other species may well obtain probiotics and micronutrients lacking in their regular diets.

Manufactured pet foods are heat-processed, destroying beneficial bacteria and various essential nutrients and enzymes. Transition your dogs onto my home-prepared dog food recipe (posted at www.DrFoxOneHealth.com) or a raw (frozen or freeze-dried) organic dog food, with a little of their regular foods on the side in decreasing amounts. Add probiotics (human-grade and same daily suggested amount as for people) and a teaspoon of crushed, unsweetened pineapple, a natural source of digestive enzymes. For minerals, I would give a sprinkling of pyrophyllite clay from www.vitalityherbsandclay.com or give one human one-a-day multimineral capsule to a 50-pound dog.

I would not put out dry food for them to eat whenever they want to -- obesity may result! Keep me posted on your dogs' progress.

APHIS UPDATES PET TRAVEL WEBSITE FOR VETERINARIANS AND OWNERS

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently updated its Pet Travel website, which contains information regarding rules for pet travel abroad.

The site contains general information for pet owners and veterinarians, including country-specific rules and guidance; required examinations, tests and certifications; and steps for electronic submissions of required documentation through APHIS' online Veterinary Export Health Certification System. -- JAVMA News (2/27)

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

GENE VARIANT MIGHT CLOAK SOME PEOPLE FROM SEARCH AND RESCUE DOGS' NOSES

Some people have a variant of the serotonin transporter gene SLC6A4 that may cause their odor to change when they are under stress, possibly explaining why police dogs sometimes can't detect missing people, according to a study presented at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences' annual meeting.

Researchers found that the odor of people with a short version of the gene likely changed when they felt fear, and dogs couldn't identify those people based on their original scent. -- Science News (2/27)

This certainly supports the belief that dogs can probably smell when a person is fearful of them.

On March 15, 2019, the acting secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to administratively delist and remove Endangered Species Act protections for wolves. This would allow for state management of wolves. (A public comment period is open until May 14. To comment online, go to www.regulations.gov/document?D=FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0097-0001 and click on "Comment Now!")

Wolves and other large predators keep "game" species healthy by culling the sick and ending the lives of the infirm and suffering. Their absence across most of their original range -- caused by relentless extermination over the centuries since European colonization -- along with that of mountain lions and lynx, is probably one of the main factors in the current epidemic in 24 states of chronic wasting disease in elk, moose and deer.

This brain disease is similar to mad cow disease in the U.K. that infected several hundred people with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. There is legitimate concern that hunters and others who eat infected deer and elk might become infected.

Wolves, along with smaller carnivorous "furbearers" (bobcats, red and gray foxes, pine martens, fishers and mink) who are seasonally trapped and shot, and coyotes who can be killed any time in most states, may help control Lyme disease, which is reaching epidemic proportions along with other tick-borne diseases in the human and companion dog populations.

Vested interest groups from ranchers to trophy hunters, outfitters and trappers are behind this initiative, which flies in the face of sound science and bioethically based ecological wildlife and wildland stewardship. It must be opposed by all, so do contact your congressional legislator to oppose this proposal and share these concerns for our sakes as well as the wolves'.

DEAR DR. FOX: I have a 15-year-old Collie mix that has had a problem with bowel incontinence ever since dental surgery almost two years ago.

Therefore, his problem is my problem. I believe it to be neurological. I've tried diapers and he tears them off. I've tried laying pads on the floor, and he doesn't have sense enough to use them. I believe a little doggie dementia is going on too. A neighbor suggested that CBD oil may help. She uses it for both her and her dog. What do you think? -- M.J.S., South Bend, Indiana

DEAR M.J.S.: Our companion animals enjoy good and longer lives and often quality of life far better than they would in the wild.

So it is no surprise that like many of us living in supportive families and communities, they develop various chronic degenerative diseases that Mother Nature would have nipped in the bud early on and thus prevented escalating suffering, pain, fear, anxiety, cognitive impairment, loss of normal bodily functions, etc.

This is one reason why I urge all people with aging animals to have them checked by a veterinarian at least once a year. More and more physicians now do house calls, which can cost more but make life easier for all concerned.

Since CBD is legal in many states, I am concerned that people will be giving it to their animal companions without prior veterinary consultation, so I am glad that you are asking me.

CBD quality varies widely and could contain THC, which could be extremely upsetting or even terrifying for some animals. People giving recreational cannabis/marijuana to their animals should be prosecuted for animal abuse.

I urge you to see a veterinarian locally first to fully evaluate your dog. With regular veterinary checkups for middle-aged and older animals, many emerging health issues can be nipped in the bud -- but the best healers work with nature and give her credit where credit is due!

Ironically, this communication was interrupted by a friend who had just bought some CBD for her ailing Boxer, who has not been eating and just had a seizure, in the hopes that this will help postpone the inevitable euthanasia that her veterinarian has advised. CBD can do small miracles, especially preventing seizures, along with other medicinal herbs -- which the multinational pharmaceutical companies would rather we know nothing about while they seek to isolate, synthesize, patent and market these gifts from Mother Nature.

After the disruptive dental surgery, where antibiotics were probably prescribed and caused dysbiosis, I would give your dog some probiotics (in capsules, also in kefir and miso) and prebiotics (inulin, not insulin), as in Jerusalem artichokes and digestive enzymes. These are all available in drugstores. Also try my home-prepared recipe on my website www.DrFoxOneHealth.com.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)