Some people seem to want varmints as pets. Now there’s a bunch of prarie dog owners with monkey pox. These “dogs”got the disease from a Gambian giant rat at a pet distributor in the Chicago area. Apparently you can only get it from scratches or bites from infected animals and it is a milder form of smallpox. I’ll stick to keeping cats, dogs, song birds and tropical fish, thanks. I don’t have any of these animals, by the way. I just know people who do.