Poison Ivy thoughts

This post is just to say that we're reading a book where the parents are, like, amazing zoo-running, animal-keeper, veterinarian-type people, who are so invested in their zoo and their creatures that they seem to neglect their own child.

In the scene we just read, the child describes how some workers in the zoo made a pile of brush—that included a fair amount of poison ivy—and when they burned the pile of brush the child came in contact with the smoke and started having a fairly intense allergic reaction.

His mother reached for the Benadryl, he tells readers, but then started thinking about all the animals that may have come in contact with the smoke, and ran off to sound the alarm and assemble all the animal caretakers to attend to their assigned creatures, leaving the poor little boy to measure and administer his own medicine. 

Poor boy.

But 'cept! 

*****

(Not that I'm obsessed with poison ivy or anything...but...)

Humans are one of few animals on the face of the planet that react to the urushiol oil in poison ivy. Some primates may also react to it but by and large it is simply not a problem—and is even rather beneficial—for pretty much every other kind of animal.

Birds will sit on the vines and eat the berries. Deer eat poison ivy greens (would they would eat more of it instead of munching my entire garden). You can even hire out goats to eat poison ivy in your yard (true story).

Cats and dogs don't react to poison ivy...but you will react to it if your pet happened to have tromped through a patch, getting the oil on their fur, and then you pet them before washing the oil off. 

In short: animals typically do just fine with poison ivy.

I honestly can't imagine that any veterinarian worth their salt wouldn't know this. 

Also, for what it's worth, Benadryl isn't a great choice to combat a reaction to poison ivy since poison ivy does not cause the body to release histamines (therefore antihistamines—such a Benadryl—won't be an effective treatment). 

Also, please don't burn poison ivy because if you inhale that smoke it could be a sad (even fatal) day for you or someone else (but probably not for an elephant...or a mouse—although researchers at Duke used mice engineered to react to urushiol oil to study how to help treat poison ivy reactions, mice don't typically react to poison ivy—really it just effects, like, humans, basically). 

*****

I understand that it's a book for children. And I understand that authors can't possibly research every little aspect of every story they tell. Nor are stories even required to be accurate. 

I mean, I just had to lecture my children today about letting Phoebe just...play pretend...without it being "perfect."

The game she wanted to play was "Austin and Oaklyn," where she got to play the part of Oaklyn and Benjamin played the part of Austin. She's kind of obsessed with Oaklyn...which is fine, I'm sure. Anyway, she decided she wanted Ramen for lunch and Zoë was like, "We don't even know if Oaklyn likes Ramen so you have to pick something different—pick something we know she would like!"

And I was like, "Golly! Let Phoebe pretend to be Oaklyn. Let Phoebe have Ramen for lunch. It really does not matter if the real Oaklyn likes Ramen because Phoebe-as-Oaklyn would like Ramen and that's fine...it's all pretend."

Except, I mean, she actually wanted Ramen for lunch...and that was just fine. 

Anyway, I understand that not everything has to be 100% accurate. 

But in realistic fiction...my trust...in the story is broken with inaccuracies like this because I start to wonder about what else might not be "true." Which is ridiculous because 100% of the characters are 100% made up. So...I mean...

It's fine.

And it led to a good discussion about poison ivy. 

But it makes me feel skeptical. That's all.