At feeding time, Alam advises people stick to the golden rule of sanitation when handling pet food: wash your hands well with soap and water. As well, people should find a spot in the house for pet bowls that doesnt compromise food safety.
Coated with a layer of poultry-based liquid to make it tasty for cats and dogs, dry kibble poses a risk if the fat in the liquid applied after the sterilization process contains salmonella, she said. The same goes for dried treats and raw pet food.
Exotic pets like snakes and lizards carry salmonella in their intestinal tracts and can intermittently shed the bacteria. Infected dogs and cats can spread it through their feces for up to six weeks.
“Pet foods are so well packaged, we tend to think it is safe, so we are not very careful about it.”
“There should be a designated area where you feed your pets, and it should be outside the kitchen.”
Is Raw Dog Food More Likely to be Contaminated With Salmonella Than Kibble?
By just looking at the FDA recalls for pet food we can see that Salmonella has been recalled in both kibbled and dry dog foods. Interestingly – pet food has not been recalled (as of yet) in canned foods or within freshly cooked products.
It is important to note that there is contamination for Salmonella within the human food system as well. Supermarket raw chicken for example is allowed to contain Salmonella at a certain rate (as specified by the USDA & FDA) – with the specification that all packages have to be labeled that meats must be cooked prior to consumption. And if we look at FDA recalls in produce – we do have one recall with potential Salmonella contamination in onions between 2017 to 2020.
If we compare recalls of kibble and raw for the same period we see that raw pet foods have had 12 recalls of products due to Salmonella, and kibbled products have had 1 recall due to Salmonella. There were no recalls due to Salmonella in canned or freshly cooked dog foods during this period.
Even though there are more recalls for raw foods for this time period than kibble or cooked dog foods – this is not really the most accurate way to compare the incidence of Salmonella within dog foods. The reason for this is that the FDA does not routinely test dog foods, dog food recalls are largely self-reported, and pathogen testing is not required prior to releasing a dog food to the public. Thus it is highly possible that there is more contamination of dog foods than in the FDA report.
Years ago in order to combat this problem, the FDA funded additional research to look into the comparative pathogen load between raw and kibbled foods. The study randomly sampled 196 raw and kibbled diets and tested them for Salmonella (along with other pathogens). The study found that raw dog food contained a significantly higher amount of Salmonella than kibbled dog foods (7% vs. 0%). Another study performed in 2006 showed similar results when comparing raw and kibbled dog foods, however, this 2006 study looked at fewer foods in total than the 2014 study.
It is also important to note that at the time of the 2010 to 2012 study there was the largest FDA recall of Salmonella in kibbled dog foods – mostly associated with one manufacturing plant – Diamond Pet Foods. A total of 5 brands of kibble dog foods tested positive for Salmonella between 2010 to 2012 and were recalled. Another eight kibbled diets were voluntarily recalled due to possible contamination due to being manufactured in a facility that also manufactured other foods that were contaminated with Salmonella.
This brings to light that both kibble and raw food CAN be contaminated with Salmonella and other pathogens – which is why things like “test and hold” procedures and routine pathogen testing should be performed prior to the release of any food to the dog consumer.
Can and Do Raw Fed Dogs Cause Human Illness?
Even if a dog is not symptomatic and ill due to Salmonella, they may shed the bacteria into the environment, which could potentially cause human disease.
According to a 2007 study, 44% of dogs exposed to Salmonella within their raw diet shed it in their feces, however, only 31% of dogs shed the same strain as within the tested food. In comparison – non of the raw fed dogs fed pathogen-free raw shed it in their feces.
If we use the data alone to extrapolate the human exposure risk – we are looking at between 2-3% exposure risk for humans of Salmonella bacteria in the environment of a raw fed dog.
However these laboratory beagles were only fed the raw dog food for a short period of time (2 months), and we know from research that Salmonella can shed in the stool for up to 4-6 weeks making possible exposure possibly higher for chronic feeding of contaminated raw foods.
A follow-up study looked to further evaluate exposure risk in 2009 by sampling dog feces, and vacuum cleaner bags of homes where dogs were raw fed – then they compared those numbers to kibble fed dogs.
There are a couple of very interesting findings of this study – first is that the Salmonella rate in the feces (14%) was much higher than the food contamination rate (5%). This suggests that some dogs may have been exposed in the past to the pathogen and were still shedding it in their feces. This could have happened due to feeding a contaminated treat, by feeding a different contaminated food within the past 4-6 wks, or due to cross-contamination in the environment (as Salmonella can live for over a year in soil).
The second thing that is interesting is the kibble-fed dogs ALSO had Salmonella in their environment. Exposure to Salmonella for kibble-fed dogs may have come from a variety of sources – treats (such as Pig Ears), the environment (Salmonella can live for over a year in the soil), or exposure to other animals contaminated with Salmonella (like reptiles or chickens).