I was wondering (question about head lice)

celestialrags · Mar 7, 2009

I probley should have put this in another place but didn't know if it could be concidered health, or care and grooming? But I figured more people read in the lounge any way.

I was wondering if any one knows if cats/dogs, ect can get lice fom people, or carry it to give to some one? Will head lice lay eggs and live on a pet?

cheylink · Mar 7, 2009

First of all, your avatar is so cute! It made me look because of the X, and then it changed

!!!!!
As far as I have always known, human head lice are not transferable through pets...........You can look it up on the internet as well for more facts......

jcat · Mar 7, 2009

That's a good question, and apparently lice are species-specific, so the answer is no.
Can my pet catch head lice from my kids (or vice versa)?

The short answer to this question is no; lice are species-specific, meaning that there is a different species of lice for each animal species that they depend on. Human lice need human blood to survive, dog lice need dog blood, and so on. Therefore, if your child comes home from school with a diagnosis of head lice, your dog, cat, or other pets in the household are not at risk from catching the lice or hatching eggs. Conversely, while not as common in dogs and cats, the species of lice that live on dogs and cats are not able to live on humans.

Head Lice

Lice do not jump or fly. Lice are not spread to humans from pets or other animals.

Know your enemy
20 Head Lice Facts You Should Know!

4. Pets do not transmit head lice to humans or vice versa.

I'm not sure whether this should be in Health or Care & Grooming, but I'll move it to the former.

kara_leigh · Mar 8, 2009

Lice are actually hair specific. Head lice will not stick to pubic hair, genital lice will not stick to head hair, etc. I watched a tv show about this once.

celestialrags · Mar 8, 2009

Originally Posted by jcat

That's a good question, and apparently lice are species-specific, so the answer is no.
Can my pet catch head lice from my kids (or vice versa)?

Head Lice

Know your enemy
20 Head Lice Facts You Should Know!

I'm not sure whether this should be in Health or Care & Grooming, but I'll move it to the former.

Thank-you!
My daughter has gotten lice from school a couple times and it's kind of getting difficult to deal with. I think she just keeps getting it from school, because I have treated every one and washed every thing, as well as baged things to put out side for a while like I was told to do. But now she has it again! So I didn't think that the cats (the only thing I didn't treat) could get it but some one asked me and I didn't really know 100% so I knew some one here would. But I wanted to be sure that wasn't why she got them again, and also I work at an animal shelter, and didn't want to bring it there.
I did know that there are different lice, we used to have chickens and my MIL said that chickens have chicken lice and the horses could get it from the chickens, so I didn't know about head lice getting on our cats, or the shelters cats/dogs. I had never had to deal with them before this year.
Thank-you

laureen227 · Mar 8, 2009

Originally Posted by celestialrags

Thank-you!
My daughter has gotten lice from school a couple times and it's kind of getting difficult to deal with. I think she just keeps getting it from school.

how old is she? if she's quite young [kinder] they often take a nap at school. she could be lying w/her head near someone else's, or using their 'mat', etc.
if she's older, make sure she knows not to share hairbrushes, ribbons, barrettes, headbands, jackets, headphones, etc. w/any other kids.
lice do have a way of 'traveling' thru classrooms/schools, usually because of 'sharing' behaviors like these.

yosemite · Mar 9, 2009

The first thing I would do is make sure the school is aware that she keeps coming home with lice. When our daughter was young, the school would send a note home to the parents when there was an outbreak of lice. Fortunately our daughter only got them once and our daycare lady washed all her clothing and her hair with lice shampoo before I even picked her up after work. I washed all our bedding and put the pillows in the basement and used spare pillows for 2 weeks.

Lice are much easier to get rid of than fleas actually so if I had to choose between the two, I'd take lice anyday.

strange_wings · Mar 9, 2009

I'm not sure where you live, but it's probably still cold enough that kids are wearing coats. In grade school there was always issues with head lice because they expected us to hang all of our coats together in a tiny closet or pile them together in the back of the room.

I stopped listening to the teacher after getting lice, and actually got in trouble for telling the teacher when she insisted that I put my coat back there that it was her fault that the head lice was spreading because she made us do that.

She did stop making us put our coats back there shortly after I pointed that out, though!

Speak to the school and her teacher about it. And I agree, fleas are worse - they don't care what they snack on.

I was wondering (question about head lice)

celestialrags

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cheylink

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jcat

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kara_leigh

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celestialrags

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laureen227

Darksome Duo!

yosemite

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strange_wings

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