My boxer dogs are goofy, boisterous and hyperactive, and I cannot imagine my life without them.
Just like you, pets can also be impacted by mould and toxicants which is why when I assess a home, I always ask about the physical and mental health of pets. The impact of daily chemical exposures on our pet, may serve as a surrogate for the effects on human health outcomes. Researchers have discovered that dogs provide valuable insights as sentinels for exposure-related human disease because they share similar exposures in the home, have shorter life spans, share many clinical/biological features, and have closely related genomes (Wise et al, 2021). Using silicone tags on dogs and wrist bands on their owners, they discovered that pets have similar levels of chemical exposures to their owners, and these correlate with urinary metabolites in both species (Wise, 2020). In the past decade, silicone wristbands have emerged as a useful tool for quantifying personal exposure to chemical mixtures (Samon et al, 2022).
Listen to their interview: HERE
References
Samon, S. M., Hammel, S. C., Stapleton, H. M., & Anderson, K. A. (2022). Silicone wristbands as personal passive sampling devices: current knowledge, recommendations for use, and future directions. Environment international, 107339.
Wise, C. F., Hammel, S. C., Herkert, N., Ma, J., Motsinger-Reif, A., Stapleton, H. M., & Breen, M. (2020). Comparative exposure assessment using silicone passive samplers indicates that domestic dogs are sentinels to support human health research. Environmental science & technology, 54(12), 7409-7419.
Wise, C. F., Hammel, S. C., Herkert, N. J., Ospina, M., Calafat, A. M., Breen, M., & Stapleton, H. M. (2021). Comparative Assessment of Pesticide Exposures in Domestic Dogs and Their Owners Using Silicone Passive Samplers and Biomonitoring. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(2), 1149-1161.