Pets and your health: the good and the bad

( Alexander Natruskin / Reuters )

Those claws: If you get scratched (or bitten) by a cat, you could get cat scratch disease, but only if the cat has fleas, says Bruno Chomel, a UC Davis professor of zoonoses (diseases that can be passed from animals to humans). Flea feces are the source of the problem, he says, and the cat may give it to you if it has some under its claws. Symptoms include a bump or blister where the scratch (or bite) occurred, fatigue, fever, headache, a swollen lymph node and just a general all-around crummy feeling.