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Dog germs
Name: Charles Cole
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Is a dog's mouth cleaner than a human's?
Replies:
Charles,
Indeed, I have heard that this is true, but I don't have any
scientific report handy which confirms it. What I have heard
in the past is that, on occasion, if someone is accidentally
bitten by a person, the bite is considered quite serious.
If a study ever were done, I'm sure the actual 'cleanliness'
of a human versus canine mouth would have to be compared
based on a variety of normal foodstuffs consumed by each group
(in the humans case, maybe hot dogs, cereal, soda, roast beef,
etc) and the canines (dog food, garbage cans, various animal
remnants found in the neighborhood). I'm sure you can see that
there would certainly be occasions where the human's mouth
would register as cleaner just because of what had been eaten
earlier. Another house-kept dog, fed only purchased dog food
and kept 'squeaky-clean' might register cleaner than perhaps
a person with poor mouth hygiene. Since we humans regularly
do floss and brush, and gargle, I am sure many of us do
our best to try to 'keep up with Fido'. :)
I hope this information helps!
Thanks for using NEWTON!
Ric (rickru)
A possibility is that dogs' mouths are not "cleaner" at all, but that
people bites are worse simply because the germs living in peoples' mouths
are all germs that can attack you, whereas most of the germs living in a
dog's mouth couldn't even if they got under your skin. They're *dog*
germs, right? Specially adapted to living in dogs and not people. There
aren't that many species of bacteria that can live in more than one
species, although those that do are a real pain. Smallpox, you see, pretty
much only lived in humans, so that when all humans were vaccinated the
disease just died out. Tetanus, on the other hand, lives in cows as well
as people, rabies lives in bats and raccoons, malaria in mosquitoes, plague
in rats, etc. Since you can't take health care to the wild animals, you
can't wipe out these diseases.
Christopher Grayce
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Update: June 2012
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