You can suffer serious medical consequences, but the wound may also attract the attention of local health authorities. Here’s why.

By Joan Walker

Buddy, a streetwise stray cat that had been rescued from a vacant parking lot, took great exception to a male cat spraying the front door of his adoptive home. To even out the turf war, Buddy decided to launch a counter attack — by spraying the inside of the door.

It takes a kind heart to help the local feral population, but be very careful to avoid getting bitten when dealing with unfamiliar animals.

“I saw Buddy positioning [to spray], so I tried to scoot him away from the door,” explains Nancy Peterson, information specialist for the Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C. “He bit me. It wasn’t just a little tooth scratch, either. It was a nice bite,” she says. As a former veterinary technician, Peterson was quite aware of the…

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