The Effects of Smoking on Pets
Pets outnumber people in the United States by the tens of millions. In 2008 the estimated human population numbered at around 304 million people, pets on the other hand numbered around 365 million. This includes cats, dogs, birds, and many other creatures.
Interestingly enough it was discovered that people spend around 41 billion dollars on these millions of furry, feathered and slimy animals as well. Clearly this means that most people love, and even spoil, their pets. This makes it hard to imagine why so many pet owners would continue to smoke even as more and more studies indicate how susceptible animals are to secondhand smoke.
Oral and nasal cancers and deadly lymphomas take the lives of hundreds of thousands of animals, unnecessarily, each and every year. How do they get such a range of conditions if it is their owners with the bad habit? Let’s look first at cats to understand the processes by which they acquire deadly forms of cancer connected to smoking.
Cats are fastidious creatures that bathe frequently throughout the day. They lick their fur and skin and in doing so they expose their mouths and bodies to the toxins of cigarette smoke. If you ever pick up the cat that lives with a smoker you will instantly detect the familiar stench of stale tobacco smoke on the animal’s fur. Imagine the toxicity of that smoke as it clings to the animal and as they then lick their fur and skin clean.
This process has led to a shockingly high number of cats developing squamous cell carcinoma, or oral cancer. Because the mucus membranes are at such risk in a smoking household, many cats will also develop a very lethal cancer known as malignant lymphoma that hits their lymph nodes and kills most within twelve months of its appearance.
Dogs and birds are also highly susceptible to cancer from secondhand smoke as well. This has to do with their noses and sinuses. Long-snouted dogs are at frequent risk for the development of sinus and nose cancer simply because they have a larger surface area of exposure to the carcinogens of secondhand smoke. Dogs with short or medium snouts are at greater risk for lung cancer because their sinus passages just cannot properly cleanse the smoke of the lethal carcinogens before reaching the lungs.
Birds too are at great risk for lung cancer and pneumonia simply because they are naturally sensitive to pollutants, which is the primary material in all secondhand smoke.
The only way to avoid risking the lives of animals is to avoid smoking around them or in the home altogether.
