All babies eat cat food, right? Well, at least all babies who share their homes with cats. Dogs are less likely to leave food behind for baby to snack on, but I suppose it's possible.

Scientific American reports that 79 people in the United States have gotten sick after eating pet food contaminated with the bacteria Salmonella enterica. Most of those are under age two, which is only to be expected, since most people over age two have the good sense not to eat pet food.

As with other food potentially contaminated with bacteria, such as raw meat and poultry, it may be a good idea to treat dry pet food as a potential source of cross contamination. Wash food bowls after every feeding, and wash your hands after feedings your cats and dogs.

No pet illnesses are reported. I could tell you the probably reason why, but that would be off-topic. This is not my science blog; this is. Suffice to say that carnivores are not very susceptible to getting sick from spoiled meat. (If you are really curious, leave a comment and perhaps I will elaborate on my science blog.)

This post was originally published on Leave the lights on.

~ ~ ~

This is not a commercial and I have no stake in this product. But it really does work for me, so I feature it this Wednesday. If you have a cat, read on.

We have two cats. When our first child arrived, we no longer had room for the second litter box. And since we are lazy, we knew we would never change a single litter box often enough.

So we went to the big-box pet store and sprung for one of those gimmicky products that the pet-supply world is full of. This one lived up to the hype!

We've had our Litter Maid box for three years. When we brought it home and plugged it in, the cats thought it was the coolest thing ever and would run to watch every time it scooped the box. It requires no care from us except to dump the poop-tray once a week and refill the litter (and occasionally clean it like any litter box).

The cons are that the box itself is expensive (about $150 for the extra-large model we got) and so are the refill trays (almost a dollar each, and we go through one a week with two cats). You could dump them out and re-use them, but that would defeat the purpose of not having to mess around with dirty cat litter. You also have to buy good clumping litter (Tidy Cat Multi-Cat has always worked for us) which costs a little more, but that works out to be even because you waste less of it.

Now if only I could find self-changing diapers, I would be all set!

Works For Me Wednesday is hosted by Rocks In My Dryer.