Never Let Your Dog Lick Your Mouth. Here's why.

Before you read on I want to make it clear that I love dogs. But that doesn’t take away from the facts surrounding their cleanliness or lack of. The fact is , dog’s mouths are full of bacteria and the saying that they are cleaner than human mouths is a complete myth.

It’s common sense really, all you have to do is watch where dogs put their mouths, they are constantly sticking their noses and mouths in garbage, licking anything they see lying on the ground or in the park, and of course they like to give their own private area a good licking , oh and don’t forget they love to sniff each others backsides.

John Oxford is a professor of virology and bacteriology at the Queen Mary University in London, and here is explains in more details just how much bacteria your dog’s muzzle and mouth can carry.

“It is not just what is carried in saliva. Dogs spend half their life with their noses in nasty corners or hovering over dog droppings so their muzzles are full of bacteria, viruses and germs of all sorts.”

It is these viruses and germs that can be very harmful to your health and even life threatening as one 70-year-old woman from England found out.

Her very rare case is described in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports. The woman’s speech began to slur before she eventually became unresponsive. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital where she improved, but four days later she developed confusion, a headache, diarrhea and a high fever, and her kidneys began to fail.

Blood tests revealed she had sepsis, or blood poisoning, which resulted in organ failure. For doctors, her dire condition presented a medical mystery.

Eventually after several tests they finally found the culprit:  a bacterium commonly found in the mouths of dogs and cats, called Capnocytophaga canimorsus.

It is said that there have been 13 similar cases reported in the UK alone.

There are also a number of other rather unpleasant diseases that your dog can pass to you … if you don’t have a strong stomach you might not want to continue scrolling down.

This is called ringworm infection. If the dog has an sign of this infection around their mouth and they kiss you then you will more than likely contract it. 

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