Longtime Charlottesville Area Transit driver Matthew Ray (center with sign) says the potential pay bump in a new contract between CAT and the city could help drivers commit to working for CAT full-time. Supplied photo.
Charlottesville’s unionized bus drivers reached their first agreement with the city after City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance to allow collective bargaining for public sector employees. The focal point of the deal was a substantial wage increase for bus drivers.
Charlottesville Area Transit representatives, now members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, negotiated a tiered system of pay increases into the three-year contract.
In a statement, the local chapter said, “Before we won our union, there was no pay progression at CAT. Workers could spend decades at the city and make less than someone else newer than them. This deal fixes that and dramatically improves wages across the board for all job classifications.”
The new contract proposes a 2 percent pay increase for all job titles with an additional 2 percent increase for each year of service, up to eight years. That would raise the starting pay for an operator from $22.36 an hour to $23. But each year, the deal stipulates a wage increase for each level so that by 2026, starting pay would be $24.15.
The contract is now awaiting the City Manager’s signature and City Council’s April 9 approval of the budget, which would fund the pay raise. If approved, the new contract will go into effect on July 1, but wage increases won’t go into effect until January 1 of next year.
Both sides agree that bus drivers should be paid more—stagnant wages have forced many long-term drivers to need second jobs. Recruitment of new drivers has also hit a low point.
Matthew Ray, who has been driving for Charlottesville Area Transit for 10 years, says his pay will increase from $22.35 to $31 an hour. Ray’s wife has worked in the school bus division of transit for two and a half years. He says she will get a $5-an-hour raise.
“It’s definitely going to be life-altering money,” Ray says. “When you’re making five, 600 dollars more a paycheck, that is huge. For this area, that is getting people out of their second jobs where they only need one now.”
Ray has been involved in organizing the CAT workers under the Amalgamated Transit Union since the new legislation first came into view.
“Since the ATU’s first day showing up down here,” Ray says. “I was attracted to them instantly and got involved.”
Ray is now the shop steward of the Charlottesville chapter, which means it’s his role to represent the area’s bus drivers to city management. In negotiations, the union argued that bus drivers should be able to afford to live in the area where they are driving people around.
Ray says the number of bus drivers for the city has been declining for the past several years.
“We don’t have the people and we don’t have the buses to provide the level of service we did seven years ago,” Ray says. “At one time we were like 80-85 drivers. We’re down to like 50-55 drivers right now.”
That means CAT has had to reduce its routes and run routes less frequently. Currently, routes 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, and 11 run every hour and routes 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9 run every half hour. Route 12, a service that ran on Sundays, has been discontinued.
An hour can be a long time to wait, especially if you miss a bus or if the bus is delayed. As a result, Ray says, ridership has flagged.
“When you can’t provide the services to the public that you need to provide to get people to and from work, they stop riding your bus,” Ray says. “And that’s our current predicament. We don’t have the ridership we had five, six, seven years ago.”
CAT currently has 40 buses in its fleet, but only operates 17 and two trollies. In order for CAT to provide more service, the city needs more bus drivers.
The new contract could provide the push that the transit sector needs. Ray says the wage increase will put CAT among the most competitive transportation industry jobs in Virginia and turn the tide for the city’s bus drivers.
Before April of 2020, it was illegal for a municipality in Virginia to enter into collective bargaining agreements with employees. That year, a bill passed the Virginia House of Delegates repealing the prohibition on collective bargaining for public sector employees. The new bill left it in the hands of localities to decide if they would recognize labor unions as bargaining agents. In October of 2021, Charlottesville was among the first cities to do so. The city now recognizes bargaining units for the police department and fire department as well as public transit.
Matthew Ray is proud of what the workers have accomplished. “The City of Charlottesville is unionizing,” he says. “Not just us three, but everyone.”
JAUNT CEO Brad Sheffield presented the all-electric bus to the public February 22. PC: John Robinson
Braving the frigid weather, nearly two dozen people gathered in front of Regal Stonefield & IMAX last Wednesday to see the newest addition to JAUNT’s fleet: an all-electric transit vehicle.
The first of its kind in the region (and the first in operation in Virginia), the Ford Transit 350HD passenger van, which will be used for JAUNT’s on-demand service, is fully accessible and can accommodate 10 passengers, along with two wheelchairs. On a single charge, it can travel up to 120 miles.
“For about a decade, transit has been investing in electric vehicles, [but] it’s been mostly big buses,” JAUNT CEO Brad Sheffield said at the press conference. “It’s only been within the last year that we’ve seen that the technology has reached the cost-point that buses like the ones JAUNT operates…[can be] made into electric vehicles.”
“This is a spark, hopefully, to get more of that investment for additional vehicles to be converted,” he added.
JAUNT paid $185,000 for the van, approximately $140,000 more than its gasoline-powered equivalent. However, it will cost only .08 cents per mile to operate the van, compared to the .15 cents per mile it costs to run it on gasoline. And, of course, it will produce fewer emissions, a significant factor as the city works to become carbon neutral by 2050.
If it receives enough funding from state and local governments, JAUNT plans to convert six more of its 78 on-demand transit vehicles within the next year. And by 2030, Sheffield hopes that a majority of JAUNT’s fleet will run on electricity.
However, JAUNT is not alone in its efforts to advance the region’s public transit. Lucas Ames, who serves on JAUNT’s board of directors and on the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership, says the group has been discussing ways to connect Charlottesville Area Transit, University Transit Service (UVA’s bus system), and JAUNT’s services, so that they feel like “one public transit entity.”
“Right now, there’s a lot of struggle [for] people who want to switch between services. The technology doesn’t match up. There’s different payments,” says Ames. “From the user perspective, [they] really do feel like three separate systems.”
Through the partnership, it’s possible to create a pass riders could use for both CAT and JAUNT (UTS rides are free), as well as develop an app that includes all three transit systems.
But before the region can move forward with such initiatives, “we need to invest in data analysts within our transit agencies,” says Ames. “The technology and data that each system uses…needs to be put forth and shared so that as a community we can see what’s happening in transit from a data perspective.”
Diantha McKeel, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors who also serves on the partnership, agrees that the transit services must share their data in order to make any real progress.
“The county has a desire to expand services…[but] we’re really trying to get better data,” she says. “At this point in time, I still can’t tell you where my Albemarle County riders are getting on and getting off of the buses.”
CAT has listened to the partnership’s concerns, and has already begun sharing its data on a monthly basis with the city and county, says CAT director and RTP member Garland Williams.
According to Ames, another priority on the RTP’s agenda is reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips, especially for those who travel into Charlottesville for work.
It has already started working on one potential solution to this issue: commuter lines. Last month, it recommended that the city, county, and UVA allocate funding for Afton Express, which would connect Charlottesville to Staunton, make four trips a day, and have just a $3 fare price. If the funding is approved, commuters could begin using the route as early as 2021.
The partnership, however, plans to get community input on commuting, among other issues, through an in-depth study on the region’s transit vision. If the city and county agree to fund the study, it will be conducted by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
In order to meet every resident’s needs, McKeel ultimately sees the region expanding both its fixed routes and on-demand service in the future, pointing to towns like Danville, which have successfully done that.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We should be able to learn from other communities what they’re doing right and how they’ve been improving their ridership,” she says.
But as the different transit services grow, they must work to hire and retain more bus drivers (and pay them a fair salary), an issue RTP has already begun discussing, McKeel says. And, as JAUNT is already doing, they must continue to find ways to make their transit vehicles more green.
According to RTP member and UTS director Becca White, UVA is already exploring ways to use alternative fuel vehicles, such as electric buses, in order to meet its goal of being carbon neutral by 2030.
While the RTP has also created a subcommittee on electric vehicles, it’s unlikely CAT will be getting electric buses anytime soon, says Williams, as it’s currently focused on addressing its issues with decreased ridership.
“As the technology [behind electric vehicles] gets better, CAT is open…to introducing technology that is proven,” he says.
Charlottesville is a growing city. We’ve added 5,000 residents since 2010, with another 10,000 in the county. And by 2040, projections from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service show an additional 6,000 people in Charlottesville and 33,500 in the county (roughly), bringing our total population to more than 196,000.
Now imagine if all of those people are relying on their cars to get around. The typical suburban household generates 10 vehicle trips per day, according to the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Without an efficient public transit system, our traffic and parking problems—not to mention greenhouse gas emissions—are likely to get much worse.
Transportation makes up almost a third of the carbon emissions generated within the city limits, says Susan Elliott, Charlottesville’s climate protection program manager. Investing in public transit will be crucial for meeting the new, more ambitious climate goals that are currently being set by the city, county, and UVA. And in addition to helping manage traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, public transportation can also reduce household costs, and is vital for those who can’t afford a car.
Charlottesville wasn’t built around mass transit, but as the city evolves and rethinks its ideas about density, we also have the opportunity to support a 21st-century transit system. And now might be just the right time. In 2017, the area’s planning district commission created the Regional Transit Partnership to help our patchwork of transit systems work better together. The city will soon hire a new director for the city-owned bus service, Charlottesville Area Transit, and other developments make this a promising moment for public transportation.
While systemic change is needed, it’s also up to individuals to change their habits and commit to making fewer trips by car.
“Setting a personal goal, like to avoid driving one day each week, could help people have an impact and transition into being comfortable with other available options,” Elliott says. To hold myself accountable and inform the work I do at the Piedmont Environmental Council, I’ve spent the last month retraining myself to go as car-free as possible.
After some growing pains, I learned how I can make Charlottesville Area Transit work for me. Now, I want to help others figure out how they can change their commute and to help our localities and institutions find solutions for others. For those who live outside the central core of Charlottesville, that will require a better regional bus system.
Environmental advocate Sean Tubbs embarked on a month-long experiment to ditch his car and rely on public transit to get around. Photo: Eze Amos
Declining ridership
I bought my house, near Buford Middle School, in 2008, in part because there was a CAT stop six houses away. For five years, I frequently took the bus to work, a mile and a half away from home. I could get there in 15 minutes.
But in 2013, City Council approved a major realignment of CAT routes in order to increase the efficiency of the buses. The intent was to make routes more direct, but the changes coincided with a ridership decline that continues to this day.
In 2013, CAT reported just over 2.4 million trips to the U.S. Department of Transportation. By 2017, that number had fallen by nearly 9 percent. Ridership on all CAT routes declined another 5.35 percent from December 2017 to December 2018.
My decision to stop riding is reflected somewhere in those numbers. What had been a fairly straightforward journey to work became difficult and confusing. Rather than a straight shot downtown, Route 4 now looped around UVA hospital. Route 6 took 30 minutes to get downtown. Driving became the default, a choice I could make because my former employer paid for my parking pass.
It is conventional wisdom in transit planning that people are more likely to take the bus if they can simply go to a stop where a vehicle will come along every 10 minutes. However, expanding the system to run buses more often takes money.
Better road ahead
One reason that hasn’t happened is that for years, the region’s public transportation scene has been fractured. Charlottesville Area Transit, which had a budget of $7.42 million in 2017, has been owned and operated as a branch of city government since 1975. Albemarle County pays for service on several routes but has traditionally had no formal say in how the agency operates.
JAUNT, a public service corporation founded in 1975 to provide mobility to senior citizens and those with disabilities, has evolved over the years to also provide commuter routes from outlying counties.
And University Transit Service, the bus system at UVA, is its own separate entity, providing high-frequency service in a 1.5-mile area.
A previous attempt to merge all three into a Regional Transit Authority was aggressively studied at the end of the last decade, but the idea did not become a reality, in part because the General Assembly refused to allow a referendum on a sales tax increase to pay for expanded transit.
But the new Regional Transit Partnership, combined with other recent encouraging developments, could finally put us on the road to making mass transit a viable alternative to driving a car.
In recent years, JAUNT has launched a series of ambitious routes to bring additional service within Albemarle County’s development area. These include an early morning and late afternoon hourly service to Hollymead Town Center called the Route 29 Express, as well as a public route between the University of Virginia Research Park and Grounds. The latter even offers wi-fi.
On August 5, JAUNT is expected to launch service between Crozet and UVA Grounds via Charlottesville. This is the first of several new commuter routes the agency hopes to begin.
Public transportation factored highly in the final report from UVA President Jim Ryan’s University-Community Working Group, with calls for greater regional cooperation—a move that would be welcomed by city and county officials.
City Councilor Heather Hill, a member of the regional Planning and Coordination Council, says it’s important to look at the role UVA plays in our transit system, given how many of its employees and contractors come into the city from across the region. And Albemarle County Supervisor Diantha McKeel says UTS can help with data on where people live and where they’re going, to help the partnership determine community transit needs.
But as someone who wants to reduce driving now, I realized I had to adapt to the system we have. I bought a 30-day pass for $22 and began my experiment.
Rethinking my commute
I started with the closest Route 4 stop, up a steep hill on Cherry Avenue. I used CAT’s app, which is supposed to allow riders to see when the next bus will arrive. Unfortunately, the tracking software that runs the app isn’t very precise. I would walk out of my house, check the app, and begin the trek to the stop, confident I had several minutes before the bus arrived. On at least two occasions, however, I watched the bus blow by the top of my street, even though the counter still told me I had minutes to spare.
Inconvenience will stop people from trying transit, and in years past, bad experiences had convinced me to not even bother to try. But with my rising concern about climate change, I knew it was up to me to take some time to learn the system. Eventually, I realized I should walk to another spot on Cherry Avenue, where the bus was more likely to be stopped at a traffic light, giving the app’s counter time to catch up. That also built a 10-minute walk into my commute, which is good for my health.
On the first day I had my pass, I made it a challenge to meet JAUNT director Brad Sheffield at Stonefield by taking the Route 8 bus. It took me just under an hour to get there from my house, and that included a brief pit stop to get a coffee downtown while waiting for a transfer. As I rode down Hillsdale Drive, I could envision the redevelopment of shopping centers into more homes and businesses closer to our core.
Sheffield is taking a customer-centered approach that’s worth listening to and emulating.
“We have to inform residents about all aspects of their transportation choices at the moment they are making the choice of which mode to use,” Sheffield said. “We have to go beyond simply comparing a bus route and schedule to travel time of driving a car.”
In other words, we need to consider all the benefits of public transit (and all the costs of driving). In my case, technology used by CAT has helped me get my commute down to about 20 minutes. That’s still twice as long as driving, but I don’t have to worry about paying for parking, I’m saving money on gas, and I’m getting some exercise.
On other days, I experimented with new routes to see how long it would take to get to parts of Albemarle as a passenger, reacquainting myself with the landscape. One day I took the Route 10 to Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital to meet with planners in Albemarle to talk about the future of Pantops. My conversations about land use have changed significantly now that I see the world a little differently as a bus passenger.
But I also experienced how inconvenient it can be when the system is disrupted. On the day of the Charlottesville marathon, I had planned to take the bus as far north on U.S. 29 as I could go, so I could go on an urban hike. However, many routes were canceled to make way for the race.If I had to rely on transit to get to a job in the same location, I don’t know what I would have done.
On one Thursday, I used Route 9 to travel to a Little League game at McIntire Park. The journey to get there took much longer than I would have liked. Thankfully, the game ended before the final bus was scheduled to leave the YMCA at 8pm, so I wasn’t stranded. But the family of six I met on the bus who was traveling to the Dogwood Festival wasn’t so lucky—they had to take a cab home.
In 2010, 11% of households in Charlottesville and 6% of households in Albemarle County did not have a car. Source: Charlottesville Transit Study, 2013
What’s next
After a month of taking the bus, I feel much more in tune with what’s going on around me. I’ve managed to figure out how to learn the rhythm of the system in order to navigate it so I can drive less. I have bought a second monthly pass.
But not everyone is willing to spend 30 minutes or more on a commute that would take 10 minutes in a car. And what about those who don’t live near a bus route? After years of monitoring land use and transportation issues in this community, I feel we have a golden opportunity to make a serious push for a better regional system.
As the city prepares to welcome Tarron Richardson as city manager, and as the search for a new CAT director begins, the system has an opportunity to adjust to meet the needs of those who want to take public transit.
In the near future, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on to ensure the buses run much more smoothly. The regional partnership’s first major success is a funding agreement that will give Albemarle a more transparent look into how Charlottesville calculates the cost of providing service in the county. Such a move should inspire Albemarle to have more confidence in the system, and then more funding for more routes to expand coverage.
Another step forward would be greater integration between the University Transit Service and CAT, so areas of Albemarle and Charlottesville like Ivy Road continue to be served when the University is not in session.
And advocates would like to see further study of a route that connects Harrisonburg and Charlottesville, to provide an alternative to the thousands of people who commute every day from the Shenandoah Valley. The idea was looked at by area planners in 2017, but an initial effort to fund a pilot project was not successful.
But most importantly, we need a regional system that works together for the purpose of moving people across the region.
For this to happen, our transit systems must continue building working relationships. And we, as individuals, can work on changing our habits.
Since challenging myself to get out of my car a month ago, I’m experiencing Charlottesville in a much more human way. If I’m stuck in traffic now, at least I’m not driving. I don’t have to worry about where my car is parked, and my employer doesn’t have to pick up the tab.
I don’t plan on selling my car anytime soon. But relying on it less is possible, and I encourage you to give it a shot if you can.
Sean Tubbs covered land use and transportation for Charlottesville Tomorrow for many years. He currently works on smart growth issues for the Piedmont Environmental Council. You can follow his transit exploits on Twitter @seantubbs.
Mississippi ekes by Virginia as the state that makes it the most difficult for its citizens to vote, while Oregon is ranked best state for voters in a recent study.
We’re No. 49
Virginia ranks as one of the worst states in the country when it comes to ease of voting, according to a recent study from Northern Illinois University. Our state has slipped in the “cost of voting index” since 1996, when we ranked No. 42, to the “second most difficult” place to vote in 2016—just ahead of Mississippi, says co-author Michael Pomante.
Voter fraud is often cited as the reason for the restrictions, but Pomante says, “We don’t see voter fraud in other states that make it easier to vote.”
And what does No. 1 look like? That would be Oregon, home to automatic voter registration and where every voter on the rolls is mailed a ballot, which can be mailed or dropped off, says Pomante. “It makes voter turnout much higher.”
The next step for researchers is to look at voter disenfranchisement, says Pomante. “We do know there’s a correlation with minority population and voting. States with higher minority populations make it more difficult to vote.”
And on the cost of voting index, most Southern states wallow in the bottom half of the scale.
Reasons why the Old Dominion is so voter unfriendly:
Voter registration deadline: It’s three weeks before Election Day, while some states have same-day registration, automatic registration, or even pre-registration for those about to turn 18.
Photo ID: without it, voters have to cast provisional ballots.
No early voting.
Absentee voting: You’d better have a
darn good excuse to do so.
Felon disenfranchisement: While not quite as bad as Florida, where 10 percent of the citizens can’t vote because they’ve spent time in jail, Virginians who have served their time have to petition the governor to get back their voting rights.
Quote of the week
“We’ve got to do a better job of teaching critical thinking to young people so they won’t be suckered by hate mongering.”—Martin Luther King III at the Virginia Film Festival
In brief
Rebel flags banned
The Charlottesville City School Board voted unanimously November 1 to prohibit wearing hate symbols such as Confederate, Nazi, and KKK imagery across the division. Albemarle, which has been sued in the past for restricting images on students’ clothes, is still wrestling with the issue.
Another UVA frat racial incident
UVA’s Student Hip-Hop Organization and I.M.P. Society denounced “blatant discrimination and violence” at an October 27 party they hosted at Beta Theta Pi, the Cav Daily reports. After deciding not to allow additional guests, white guys guarding the doors let their friends in, and fraternity members set up a separate, exclusive space from other partygoers, creating an unwelcome environment for minority students. The fraternity apologized November 2.
‘Graduation rapist’ in news again
Jeffrey Miller, formerly known as Jeffrey Kitze. Photo: Virginia Department of Corrections
Jeffrey Kitze was convicted of raping his sister’s UVA law school roommate in 1989. And he was back in jail for probation violations for stalking a local woman in 2013, when he changed his name to Jeffrey Ted Miller. In May, he moved to New York, where a woman recently requested a protective order against him, CBS19 reports.
Books are back
Another used bookstore will take the place of the Downtown Mall’s now-closed Read It Again, Sam, according to landlord Joan Fenton. She says new tenant Daphne Spain will open the doors of Second Act in February.
Cost of grooming?
Some Charlottesville police are fighting childhood cancer by not shaving their facial hair until February. “Officers will be allowed to grow beards and donate the money they typically spend on shaving and grooming to benefit the UVA Children’s Hospital Cancer Clinic,” according to a CPD press release on the Winter Wool campaign. Here’s hoping some CPD members are used to expensive shaves.
Transit boss declares CAT buses bug-free
During the summer, C-VILLE Weekly learned of Charlottesville Area Transit drivers being plagued by irritations that they attributed to bug bites. The city confirmed it was aware of “two or three cases,” but said the drivers had not seen the bugs they believed responsible for the bites.
“They have never found a thing,” says transit director John Jones. “There aren’t any bugs on the buses. There are bugs on people.”
When passengers visibly sporting bugs catch the CAT, says Jones, “We call Foster’s Pest Control immediately.”
City buses are vacuumed every night, cleaned every week, and bug-bombed regularly, he says. In fact, one driver’s rash came from the cleaning products. “They’re harsh,” says Jones.
A new trolley will have hard plastic seats to further thwart insect infestations, he says.
He also notes that a sofa in the drivers lounge that employees wouldn’t touch was replaced by a leather one that turned up in the city warehouse. “One of the judges downtown was getting rid of some nice furniture.”
Jones reassures CAT riders: “We never found an infestation of bed bugs or anything.”
You could catch more than the CAT when you ride city buses. File photo
Former Albemarle School Board member Gary Grant had an appointment at UVA WorkMed Clinic last month and he struck up a conversation with a Charlottesville Area Transit bus driver. As a former school bus driver himself, Grant asked the driver if he was in for a random drug test.
It was even worse.
The driver was there for bugs irritating his skin, and he said it happens to a lot of CAT drivers, says Grant. “The CAT buses are full of bugs,” he recounts from his conversation with the driver, who said some who are sensitive to the bugs end up with rashes and nasty itching.
CAT has received two to three complaints from its drivers saying they believe they have received bug bites on buses this year, according to city spokesperson Brian Wheeler.
“At this time, drivers have been unable to see the bugs or know how they were bitten,” says Wheeler in an email. “Some drivers have been seen in a medical facility, but they report that medical personnel cannot identify the nature of the bite or the cause of the rash or irritation.”
And in case we were wondering, “Charlottesville Area Transit cleans its buses every day,” says Wheeler.
The Virginia Department of Health has nothing on the mysterious itch-causing insects. “I do not have any information to provide you about the bugs at this time,” says Kathryn Goodman, spokesperson for the Thomas Jefferson Health District.
Grant says it was his perception that it was more than two or three drivers getting bitten. “It was serious enough,” he says. “He wasn’t being funny.”
And he wonders about all the passengers who suffer from hitchhiking bugs from other passengers, and then going home and not being able to figure out why they have skin problems.
Cat owners should avoid keeping lilies in their homes and their gardens because the plants, flowers and even pollen are dangerous to their pets.
It’s not yet safe to think that spring has fully sprung, but as the occasional warm days sneak back onto the calendar, it’s hard to resist cracking the windows and cleaning the house in preparation for brighter weather. In my case, that optimistic spirit invariably leads to the purchase of a few houseplants. Ignoring all prior experience, I believe this just has to be the year in which I’ll finally keep them alive for more than a week and a half.
If you live with animals, your choice of botanical decor should depend on more than just appearances. Unfortunately, some of the most beautiful plants are also the most dangerous. Those fiery tiger lilies might look fantastic in the garden, and the Easter lily on your kitchen table might be appropriate for the holiday, but they are outright deadly to cats.
Although it’s been known for some time, it remains unclear exactly why lilies are so poisonous to cats. The offending compound hasn’t been identified, but it makes quick work of a cat’s kidneys when ingested, even in a small amount. It doesn’t matter if they chew on the leaves, stem or petals. There is even evidence that the plant’s pollen is as toxic as the plant itself. Regardless, it only takes a few hours for symptoms to kick in, and fatal kidney failure follows within a day or two.
If a cat is caught in the act, prompt treatment to empty the stomach and provide hospitalized supportive care can save its life. But because lilies are often grown outdoors, ingestion frequently goes unrecognized until the damage is done. These cases may still benefit from aggressive treatment, but the prognosis is sadly more doubtful.
Oddly, cats are the only animals known to be affected by this particular toxicity. Other animals, including dogs, can eat these plants with only a bit of stomach upset to show for it.
Adding further confusion is the fact that not all lilies are lilies. Not technically, at any rate. The lily of the valley belongs to an entirely different family of plant and doesn’t cause renal failure in cats. But don’t relax just yet. Instead, it contains compounds called glycosides that can disrupt the normal function of the heart.
Still other pretenders include peace lilies and calla lilies. These unrelated plants are also toxic, but in a far lesser sense. Instead, they contain microscopic crystals called oxalates that can cause serious inflammation of the mouth, throat and stomach when ingested. They won’t kill anybody, but they can leave curious pets with a mouthful of regret.
I suppose it’s nice to know that not all lilies are cat killers, but the others still deal their share of damage. When it comes to preparing my home for spring, I think I’ll just leave any lilies out of it. It’s clearly the safest choice for my pets’ well-being. And given my track record with plants, it’s probably best for the lilies as well.
Dr. Mike Fietz is a small-animal veterinarian at Georgetown Veterinary Hospital. He received his veterinary degree from Cornell University in 2003 and has lived in Charlottesville since.
If a pet’s third eyelid remains exposed, it means something is wrong with that eye.
At a glance, you wouldn’t even know it’s there. Dogs and cats appear to have the same two eyelids that we do. But look closer, especially if you find your pet half asleep, and you might catch a glimpse of their third eyelid. Properly called the nictitans, it’s a pink sheet of tissue that stretches diagonally from the inner corner of each eye, but which stays drawn out of view under normal circumstances.
The nictitans isn’t unique to our household pets. This membrane is common across the animal kingdom, and is seen in a variety of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. It’s even translucent in some species, functioning as flip-up safety goggles. And while human beings don’t have a proper third eyelid, you can see the vestigial remnant of yours in the mirror—a little band of pink tissue called the plica semilunaris.
In dogs and cats, the third eyelid isn’t directly controlled by any muscles. Instead, it works as a spring-loaded protective device. When threatened or injured, the eye reflexively sinks backwards into its socket. This simply gives the nictitans enough room to pop up and do its job. Once the situation has passed, the eye returns to its normal position, forcing the nictitans back into its pocket.
This is important because if a pet’s third eyelid remains exposed, it means something is wrong with that eye. It could be a simple eye infection, or perhaps a scratched cornea. Sometimes I’ll find foreign material—perhaps a bit of grass or grit—stuck in there. And if both are exposed, it can indicate a wide variety of underlying causes ranging from dehydration to neuromuscular disease.
It’s not uncommon that I see an animal with an injured third eyelid. It’s relatively delicate, and the edge can easily be cut or torn. But these injuries are usually simple to manage, and serve as evidence that the membrane performed admirably. Better to have an injured third eyelid than an injured eyeball. These cases are the ocular equivalent of fender-benders.
At least a few times a year, I’m also likely to see a puppy with “cherry eye,” an ugly pink lump in the corner of one or both eyes. That lump is a wayward tear gland that is supposed to be tucked deep behind the third eyelid. In some dogs (and rarely in cats), the tissue meant to hold the gland in place is too loose, allowing it to pop up over the edge of the lid. Apart from being unsightly, this can damage the tear gland and cause chronic irritation, and usually requires surgical correction to put that little sucker back where it belongs.
Perhaps it’s a bit odd that our pets have a third eyelid that we don’t. But given its prevalence in other species, and how useful it can be in preventing injury, I think it’s more appropriate to wonder why we only have two.
Dr. Mike Fietz is a small animal veterinarian at Georgetown Veterinary Hospital. He received his veterinary degree from Cornell University in 2003 and has lived in Charlottesville since.
Ready to be adopted!
Penelope here. So, I got into some scuffles with my sister and ended up here. I’m real gentle, honest! I’d just prefer to be the only dog in your life.
Hey, I’m Puca. I’m not shy about asking for attention, whether you’re at the computer or lounging on the couch. I just want some pets. Can we snuggle?
What’s up? I’m Andy, and I’ve never met a stranger. Give me treats and I’m yours forever (and I’ll work on that whole leash thing—I’ve almost got it!).
Hi, I’m Franie. Around here, I’m pretty popular—I love attention and will stop at nothing to get it. Let’s have a chat or sit and bird-watch.
Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, 3355 Berkmar Dr. 973-5959, caspca.org, noon-6pm, daily
