Querying table with an ampersand in the name

I'm in the process of cleaning up a MySQL database and have to make some similar changes across multiple tables. As such, I gather my list of tables

$query = "
SELECT
    TABLE_NAME
FROM
    information_schema.COLUMNS
WHERE
    TABLE_SCHEMA = 'myDB' AND
    COLUMN_NAME = 'activeColumn'";

then iterate through each making the changes I need. The problem is that some of these tables have an ampersand in the title. I guess PHP and/or MySQL has a problem with this, as it throws this my direction

/* $query = "SELECT * FROM Cats&Dogs"; */
You have an error in your SQL syntax;
check the manual that corresponds t开发者_如何学编程o your MySQL server version for the
right syntax to use near '&Dogs' at line 1

I've found ways to fix this issue when you need to insert an ampersand in to the DB and even when you have one in the WHERE clause(truthfully, this isn't even a full solution but it's the best I found). If I enter the exact query in to MySQL without using PHP then it works.

What could be causing this issue?

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Backticks. SELECT * FROM `Cats&Dogs`.

Reference: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/identifiers.html

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Try escaping table name using reverse single quote:

SELECT * FROM `Cats&Dogs`;

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use addslashes() when you post input to database and use stripslashes() when get from datase, this will allow special characters to store and retrieve in database