Do Dogs Have Cleaner Mouths Than Their Owners?
Simply put, no, dog mouths are not cleaner than our mouths. In fact, your dogs mouth can have hundreds of different bacterial species living in it and even parasites there. The myth probably originates from the fact that the bacteria in your dogs mouth is different than the bacteria in a humans mouth. Common bacteria that can be found in your dogs mouth can include:
In addition to picking up intestinal bacteria, your dogs mouth may harbor intestinal parasites if they eat stool or debris in the yard. Even if your dog spends the majority of their life indoors, if they play in or eat the potting soil you use for your plants they are at risk of ingesting roundworm eggs .
The specific types and concentration of bacteria in your dogs mouth is dependent on several factors, including:
Can You Get Infections and Diseases From Dog Saliva?
Dogs can transmit bacterial infections and viral infections through their saliva. However, the overall risk of pathogens being transmitted from a dog’s saliva to a person is very low.
These can be transmitted through your skin if a dog bites you, and if your dog’s saliva were to get into your nose, mouth, or eyes, then these body parts could also absorb the saliva and any pathogens it carries.
The most common bacteria in a dog’s mouth is Pasteurella canis. It’s also the most common organism found in a person’s skin who has been bitten by a dog. Dogs can also transmit a bacteria called Capnocytophaga canimorsus through a bite wound, which can lead to a serious bacterial infection in people.
However, the severity of a bite wound depends on the wound’s location and whether the person is immunocompromised or vulnerable, a group that includes children under 5, adults over 65, pregnant women, and those who are immunocompromised due to a disease process.
If you get bitten by a dog, clean the wound well with soap and water for 15 minutes, and seek medical attention, no matter how minor the wound may look.
Also, if your dog eats food that happens to be contaminated with Salmonella or E. coli, then these pathogens could pass to you if your dog’s slobber gets into your mouth. A raw food diet is more likely to become contaminated, but any dog food can get contaminated with Salmonella or E. Coli.
Rabies is the most serious infection that dogs can transmit through their saliva. It is a virus that spreads when an infected dog bites a person.
The virus invades the nervous system and leads to a variety of symptoms. Dogs may initially show signs of anxiety and nervousness. Later stages cause dogs to become aggressive, uncoordinated, and disoriented, and they can attack random objects and develop tremors and seizures.
If you see a dog (or wild animal) displaying these symptoms, call your local animal control or police department and stay away from the animal. Rabies is almost always fatal when a dog, person, or any wild animal develops symptoms of this disease.
You can begin brushing your dog’s teeth when he is a puppy. This will make it easier down the road when your dog is older and full of firm ideas about what he does and doesn’t like. Training your dog to enjoy tooth brushing is just as important as getting him used to the process. Talk to your veterinarian about ways to make tooth brushing enjoyable, and be sure to use toothpaste designed for dogs and never human toothpastes, which can contain harmful substances such as xylitol.
You’ve probably heard the expression “a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s mouth” at least once in your life. Most of us have just accepted this as fact, when we think about it at all, but have you ever wondered if it is actually true?
This is because both dog and human mouths are full of microbes. While there is some overlap in the types of bacteria between species, there are also a host of different dental bacteria in your dog’s mouth that you won’t find in yours.
Your dog’s mouth might not be cleaner than yours, but keeping your dog’s mouth healthy will make you feel better about those sloppy, wet dog kisses.
Perhaps part of the reason the idea that “a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s mouth” came to be so widely believed is that we don’t typically swap diseases with our dogs when we swap saliva. You are not going to get the flu from a dog kiss, but you might get it from kissing a human loved one.
Do raw fed dogs have more bacteria in their mouth than kibble-fed?
Is your dogs mouth cleaner than your own mouth? This is something that many of us have been told or perhaps even said while a dog licked at our face. But, as with most old wives tales, the actual answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no.