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Dogs, bugs and Christmas turkey

How much do we think about the hygiene of our close animal companions? Most of us would worry if we were unable to bathe daily but we think nothing of having a pet in the house that is probably not bathed from one year to another. We willingly share our environment with these walking, furry, reservoirs of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites and yet direct contact with animals as a source of zoonotic disease goes unrecognized by the general public and largely underestimated by public health authorities.

Jani during a sunrise walk on a frosty December morning.

Those of you who know me, know how much I love my dog Jani. Over the last few weeks Jani had started continuously scratching and without obvious evidence of small motile multi-legged visitors, I got worried. A rare trip to the local vet was organized. The young vet (she surely couldn’t have graduated yet?!) diagnosed some sort of anonymous skin infection and pointed a finger at poor Jani shivering in the corner. ‘You will have to bath him and don’t forget to leave this (very expensive) shampoo on for at least 10 minutes!’ Now Jani is a golden retriever and as such would not hesitate to leap into a freezing cold river in the middle of winter snows, but show him a warm bathroom and he will run a mile. As he weighs nearly 30 kilos lifting him in and out of a bath was beyond my abilities – so picture, if you must, me in underwear and shower cap, with very resistant dog in my brand new shower room. Ten minutes is a long time to keep a wet and reluctant dog in one place – especially one slippery with soap bubbles – but it was nearly Christmas so I sang him carols as we sat there under the warm water! It is a good job no one else was around to laugh.

The incident has a serious side though. How much do we think about the hygiene of our close animal companions? Most of us would worry if we were unable to bathe daily but we think nothing of having a pet in the house that is probably not bathed from one year to another. We willingly share our environment with these walking, furry, reservoirs of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites and yet direct contact with animals as a source of zoonotic disease goes unrecognized by the general public and largely underestimated by public health authorities.

Fussing over our pets provides us with stress-releasing pleasure but fur from cats, dogs and even hamsters etc. harbours pathogens such as toxoplasma, ringworm, and campylobacters; feathers from cage birds carry the agents of pittsacosis and chlamydiosis and even the scaly surface of reptiles carry salmonellas. We treasure our pets but sometimes they can be less than friendly and bites and scratches can transmit serious, sometimes life-threatening, systemic infections from bacteria such as Bartonella and Pasturella. The range of potential pathogens carried in the oral cavity of such animals is incredible. In a sentinel study (Talan et al., 1999) of 107 patients presenting at an emergency room with dog and cat bites as many as 16 different bacterial agents were recovered per bite. So if your dog refuses to let go of the Christmas turkey you accidentally left on the kitchen table and within his teeth range – then don’t argue with him!

Perhaps more worryingly is the recent association between antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections in humans and exposure to dogs and cats. At the recent EUUS-Safefood meeting on the Ecology of Antimicrobial Resistance in Segovia, the expert, international group present recognized that the non-human use of antimicrobials in animals is an increasing threat to public health. Although the right of sick animals to be treated with antimicrobials was acknowledged on ethical grounds (at least by the majority), strategies to limit resistance spread via this route were strongly recommended. This need is supported by several recent outbreaks in which pet owners and animal health workers became infected with multidrug-resistant Salmonella Typhimurium. In each case, isolates from associated dogs and cats were identical to those from the humans. Of course the direction of the transmission route is debatable but clearly we need to consider the pets in our environments as potential reservoirs of such agents.

This is even more evident with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Strains identical to EMRSA-15, causing disease in humans, have been found in dogs and animal hospital staff in the north of England (Baptiste et al., 2005) indicating that we can share a common pool of these bacteria with companion animals. However, in the case of MRSA, the zoonotic agent transmission flow is most likely from human to animal as clearly demonstrated by the recovery of a strain of MRSA in a dog infected by its owner (van Duijkeren et al. 2004).

The Christmas holidays are a wonderful time to share with your family and with your pets. Just remember that, as you feed you dogs and cats left-over turkey, you may all be also sharing your microbial flora. I, and a sweetly smelling Jani, send you best regards for a successful year in 2008.

Diane G Newell

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Page Contact: Jennie Drew - Last modified: 2007-12-31