PHOENIX – Along with the dog ate my homework, kids can now add the dog slept with me as an excuse why they are late for school. The Mayo Clinic in Phoenix conducted a study of sleep deprivation and claim a link to owners allowing pets to sleep with them. Some scientist warn of Zoonoses, or the transmission of disease from pets to owners from allowing pets to sleep in beds.

Web MD says 53% were disturbed by pet bedroom sharing. Medical Daily claims 63% have some sleep deprivation by sharing bed with a pet.

More than half of pet owners (54%) said they shared their bed or bedroom with their dog (58%) or cat (42%) Sowjanya Duthuluru, MD told MedScape. He said that is “quite a lot.” The Web MD site also cites:

Sleeping with pets isn’t unusual in this country. According to a recent survey of pet owners by the American Pet Products Association, nearly half of dogs sleep in their owner’s beds. The survey found that 62% of small dogs, 41% of medium-sized dogs and 32% of large dogs sleep with their owners.

Several stories quote Lois Krahn, M.D., Mayo Clinic psychiatrist and author of the study.

“The study determined that while the majority of patients did not view their pets intolerably disturbing their sleep, a higher percentage of patients experienced irritation — this may be related to the larger number of households with multiple pets. When people have these kinds of sleep problems, sleep specialists should ask about companion animals and help patients think about ways to optimize their sleep.”

She also noted:

“One patient owned a parrot who consistently squawked at 6 a.m. He must have thought he was a rooster.”

According to the document “Zoonoses in the Bedroom” by Bruno B. Chomel and Ben Sun (PDF)—which is not the title of the latest hot adult novel—transmission of disease from pets to human can occur from kissing animals on the mouth and sleeping with them. Particularly flea and tick infested animals.

During a 1974 outbreak of plague in New Mexico, USA, 7 cases of bubonic plague were investigated. One patient noticed flea bites the morning after he allowed his flea-infested cat to share his bed. Similarly, in a series of 23 cases of plague related to cat exposure, a 9-year-old boy from Arizona had handled and slept with a sick cat. Another case, which occurred in 1983 in New Mexico, was likely acquired after indoor/outdoor cats slept with the patient.

Listening to Ted Nugent is not the only way to contract Cat-Scratch Fever. The document stated that cat-scratch disease can be transmitted in the bedroom.

Cat-scratch disease is mainly transmitted to humans when they are scratched by a cat that harbors Bartonella henselae–infected fleas and flea feces. However, a few documented cases have been associated with sleeping or being licked by a household pet.

The report admits that zoonotic infections acquired by sleeping with a pet are uncommon and more cases of disease transmission are caused by kissing animals.

However, severe cases of C. canimorsus infection or plague in humans have been documented. More zoonotic agents that are transmitted by kissing a pet or being licked by a pet have been identified, especially zoonotic pathogens that are commensal in the oral cavity of carnivores, such as Pasteurella spp. and C. canimorsus.

The document recommends the common sense step regular veterinary visits. Immediate steps should be taken to rid pets of flea and tick infestations.

So the lesson here is that instead of telling the little dog to move over because A new dog’s movin’ in, you should just kick him out. Then spray the dog house.

Nighty-night.

See Also Science Daily, NBC News