I heard somewhere that kids that live with pets are less likely to have allergies. I wonder if it's true. Our household includes a dog a cat and an assortment of little creatures. Both my husband and I grew up with them too. None of us have allergies.

Has anyone else heard of that and do you find a connection?

Most of us in our household are asthmatics and my son, in particular, is very sensitive to dust, smoke and other airborne allergens. Funny enough I haven't seen any of the kids act up around any animals and I was thinking of getting a small dog for the family.

The idea that growing up with animals reduces your allergy chances is based on the possibility of building up an immunity to the allergen and a generally strengthened immune system from being exposed to so many things. However oftentimes the opposite happens and the child can be seriously ill from a severe allergy (think peanut allergy-some kids will never be able to ingest anything that has thought of a peanut let alone a peanut in their lifetime).

I spent my early years living with my grandparents on their farm or right in town and visiting daily (yay for free daycare) and they had dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, cows, a pig, and various other animals on their seven acre farm with a huge garden. I am allergic to cats, mold and dust along with a variety of other pollen producing flora. So while it could work, there is no gaurantee.

I grew up with cats and still ended up with bad dust and various outdoor allergies. But my husband grew up with dogs and didn't have allergies. So who knows, it may help with some children.

I grew up with animals, no allergies. My husband's family was pet free and it seems that everyone has one allergy or another. We've always had a cat since the kids were little. The kids are allergy free, except a little hay fever in the spring.

I was born into a house will cats and was fine. The cats were killed by a neighbour, and within a year my allergies were severe.

At age 10 we took on another cat. I had to have allergy medicine to begin with, that I was weaned off. By the end of the weaning I was ok, and remained tolerant of animals till I went to uni. Came home after a year at uni, and once again I was allergic.

So yes having animals around is wonderful. It's similar to the method now being used to cure peanut allergy.