What do I have in common with Nicola Peltz Beckham? She’s a model, actress, and wealthy, beautiful heiress in her twenties, married to Brooklyn Beckham, and I’m… well, nothing like that.
However, when I look at an Instagram post of Nicola kissing her Chihuahua Nala, I realize that we are actually soul mates, and neither of us is at all afraid of the 600 or so types of bacteria and other microorganisms that live in dogs’ mouths.
I also kiss my dogs. In fact, every morning I greet them with a ritual kiss, biting and licking their ears, neck and face. No, I don’t lick my dogs, obviously I kiss them and the top of their heads. But licking is how dogs show affection and I appreciate their kisses.
I adore my dogs. We get along so well that I sometimes forget I have legs. And those twenty minutes or so I spend lying naked on the bed watching the news while my Spanish bulldogs hunt are small pleasures I will never give up.
But Peltz Beckham’s post has divided the internet. In describing Nala’s death after she was “violently and/or intentionally mistreated” by her handler (according to a lawsuit), she chose a photo of the little pup licking her owner’s lips.
Kate Spicer says she kisses her dogs every day because she loves them.
She says she’s not at all afraid of the roughly 600 species of bacteria and other microorganisms that live in dogs’ mouths.
My immediate reaction was, “Poor Nicola!” But not everyone was sending their thoughts and prayers to Beltz Beckham in her grief. Some could only see unhealthy possibilities in the dog’s saliva. A social media storm ensued.
So who’s right? People like my ten-year-old’s grandparents, who stand by with hand gel if I try to pet my dogs? Or me, who harshly judges this level of dog phobia?
I consulted a number of experts, all professors, to find out whether you should run away from a drooling dog or run to get it back.
Professor Luca Gardabasi and Associate Professor Peter Damborg from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences at the University of Copenhagen are specialists in veterinary microbiology, and their expertise focuses on bacterial diseases spread by household pets. How dangerous are dogs? I asked them.
The good news is that we can’t blame our canine friends for spreading bubonic plague (lice and fleas) or malaria (mosquitoes).
But these two world-respected experts stress that dogs can spread “parasites, viruses and fungi” (ringworm is the most common type).
The problem here, of course, is my sleeping companions’ love of licking their own asses, and rolling in other species’ feces.
While I do spray my dogs with water after these horrific events, the fact remains that my dogs are animals. And when you start counting the ways they get angry, you can keep going for a while.
Nicola Peltz Beckham kisses her Chihuahua Nala in an Instagram post that has the internet divided
Kate is ‘proud’ to be a ‘dog kisser’ despite experts saying dogs can spread ‘parasites, viruses and fungi’ (ringworm being the most common)
The professors go on to say that plain old butt licking is “a common pathway through which enteric pathogens, including E. coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter, can spread.”
One of the most dangerous diseases is Leptospira, also known as Weil’s disease. I panicked briefly, looked at the data and discovered that the average Leptospira case count is less than 40 per year, and only four deaths since 1996. The panic is over.
However, when it comes to kissing a dog, both refuse. “It won’t be drama, but we’ll probably wash our faces.”
Scientists are divided on the idea of sleeping together. “Not in my bed because I like a clean bed that is free of dog poop and hair,” says Gardabasi. “At most, I can accept a cat sleeping on it.”
“Yes, because the risk of transmission is likely low—and you have to weigh the mental health benefit of being close to your pet against the small risk,” says Damburg. After my brief moment of germ-phobic fear passed, I remembered an inspiring, science-backed lecture on how our pet dogs can positively impact human health. The lecture was given by neuroscientist Tommy Wood, a popular speaker at “improving health” conferences.
I called Wood, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Would he accept his two dogs (a pit bull-boxer mix and a boxer)? “They lick my face and sometimes get in my mouth. … Unless you’re very young or very old or immunocompromised, I would say the risk is minimal.”
He adds a note of caution: “Consider exposure to dog mouths the same as exposure to human mouths. Most people don’t wander around randomly kissing other humans they don’t know, and it’s best to take a similarly cautious approach to dealing with strange dogs.”
Then I came across the fervent defense of a dog lick or two. There is the so-called “old friends” hypothesis, which claims that humans evolved with the animals and livestock in our immediate environment, and that not only can we tolerate a dog lick, but that we actually depend on doses of their microbes for our survival.
“It’s likely that all people alive today have ancestors in tribes that hunted with dogs,” says Jack Gilbert, director of the Center for Microbiome and Metagenomics at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.
“Our immune system evolved and was selected for the presence of dogs and their bacteria.” That means: “Exposure to dogs and their bacteria is beneficial to the development of the immune system.”
Hey! Our pets are our vaccine against common pathogens! Or at least that’s the lesson I’m learning. I stand with Beltz Beckham. I love kissing dogs and I’m proud of it.
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