Dog vs Cat mouth cleanliness:

1. Is a dog’s mouth clean or dirty? I have heard people say that a cat’s mouth is cleaner than a dog’s. Is this true or false?

Wound Licking:

2. Is it okay to allow my dog to lick an open wound on a person?

Thank you,

Chris

Hello, Chris --

The answer to your first question is that a dog's mouth cannot be considered "clean," with the nasty things dogs pick up in their mouths and the bacteria residing on their teeth and gums. The mouth of any animal can hardly be called "clean" in any antiseptic sort of way.

Your second question about relative cleanliness of a cat's versus a dog's mouth can be answered simply by saying that a cat's bite is far more dangerous and prone to infection than one from a dog.

As for your third question about wound-licking, there seems to be an old myth that out on the range or in the wilderness, cowboys (or the equivalent!) would let their dogs lick their wounds to supposedly clean or even heal them. This is pure silliness: if dogs had any sort of cleansing or restorative properties in their saliva, you can be darn sure some scientist would have isolated it a long time ago and synthesized it to be used commercially for human medicine.

Should you have any wounds, my suggestion would be to go get some hydrogen peroxide or antiseptic for any cut and cover it with a Band-Aid, keeping it well out of reach of your dog's tongue!

Tracie