Well LL

You think that because people let their own dogs lick their faces that they are automaticly dirty people?, well you are wrong, wrong, wrong !
Do you actually sit there and think that those of us with children at home live in filthy conditions and homes that harbour allsorts of germs, i think not !
I am as clean as the next person on here, and i love my dogs licking my face, its shows they love me and they are part of my pack !
One of my macaws bit my hand quite bad, and it needed stitching, but after i had let my dogs lick it to "make it better" it healed within days.
My dogs are wormed regular, and all the injections are up to date, i dont fear of catching anything from them or anyone elses dog that was to lick me, i have simply been around dogs for 37 years of my life, which is a long time, i have not caught anything yet, and strongly doubt that i ever will.
Do you actually read any of the posts on here Jacki and Lovelylady? or do you just read your own or each others, look at the facts that have been posted about dog saliva, and the germs that are harboured in our own mouths and bodies, if you dont belive any of it you would probably say white was black , and black was white !
You have both been presented with facts and clinical evidence from the links, so why try and insult the intelligence of people that have probably owned dogs longer than you have both been alive !
Dean

Its all very well you just rolling off oh its ok and clean for your animals to lick you well since you recon we know" nothing" here take a looky 
http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+AND+diseases+AND+spread+AND+to+AND+humans,,ukuljubiz.freeyellow.com%2Fcp_pets.htm,,hotbot

Its about time you did some homework too and realised that there are ways of not catching things , i hope kids dont get there lips licked for there sake. cant imagen what would happen if any kids got roundworm infection :(
and another website just to show they know what there on about

http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+AND+diseases+AND+spread+AND+to+AND+humans,,www.cdc.gov%2Fncidod%2Fdiseases%2Froundwrm%2Froundwrm.htm,,hotbot

and another

http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+diseases+spread+to+humans,,familydoctor.org%2Fwebreviews%2Fwebreview27.html,,aol

and yet another

http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+diseases+spread+to+humans,,www.purdue.edu%2FResearch%2FORA%

oo whats this
http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+AND+diseases+AND+spread+AND+to+AND+humans,,www.animalpetdoctor.homestead.com%2Fzoonotics.html,,hotbot
Oh thats right its another humm yes of course your right we know nothing ;)
anyone care to share what Leptospirosis is and how it can be caught . oh and im well up on medical problems to stop trying to make out were thick!

errrrrr,

toxocara canis? that what we are waffling on about now?

Ok, yes, you can catch that from dogs. To be slightly more precise you can become infected with the toxocara canis worm IF you EAT a largish spoonful of dog poo.

Not just ANY dog poo though, noooooooo, you have to eat a fair quantity of poo that has been left in a warm humid environment for around 4/5 days, at a pretty consistant temperature.

Then of course, to catch it, you would need to eat the poo of a dog carrying that particular worm. THEN if you are EXTREMELY unlucky, you MIGHT get it. If you do, and you are even MORE unlucky than that, you could possibly damage your eye sight.

Maybe.

I think in the last ten years there has been 1 case of partial blindness caused by TC.

And as far as i can see, thats got sweet FA to do with dogs licking faces!

Meh, i give up on this one, its gotten far to silly and i have got better things to do!

Em

1 in past 10 years really i thought there was a fair amount of kids who got it and not by eating spoons of poo

Hi lovelylady, see http://www.rcophth.ac.uk/congress/2001/abstract16.html. That's not just cases caused by dogs - cats, foxes etc get there too, and are less likely to be regularly wormed than the family dog.

Didn't read all yor links in detail but many of the conditions mentioned are rare or non-existent in the UK.

Having had a bout of it this year cryptosporidium is a nasty little bug. I was sick as a dog for 36 hours. But then why blame the dogs? Cats carry it too, and its very hard to always keep them off tables, kitchen work surfaces etc.

BTW I claim the most disgusting lifestlye so far :) :). The dogs not only lick any bit of me that comes to tongue, they drink what they fancy a drop of out of our cups and glasses, and often give the plates a quick pre-wash too!

Well read these if you want to entertain yourself

http://www.dogsinthenews.com/issues/0211/articles/021119a.htm lets hope that one day if your dog has to lick your face to save you from a life threatening injury, that you dont catch something from it.

http://www.nsnews.com/issues98/w110998/mouth.html

To get toxicara canis (sorry if it's spelt wrong) the poo needs to be in 'ideal conditions' which is left out in warm weather for a few days or weeks, then the ONLY way it can infect people is if it's ingested. Children do this by playing where irresponsible owners don't pick up after their dogs (I assume you do, despite the fact you want no contact whatsoever with any dog germs) and then touch their mouths.
Even when it is it contracted, it very, very, very rarely causes any eye problems at all, because it has to go way off it's course to do that.

If your dog is healthy and wormed, and you pick up after it, then it poses no risk whatsoever to you. IF you live in poo and don't bother looking after your dogs, you have a risk (albeit not great one).

Jo

edited to say: leptosprirosis can be caught by ingesting the urine of infected animals. The vaccine is part of the innoculations your dog gets. For most zoonotic diseases your dog has to be ill before you catch it. If your dog is ill and you do nothing about it, you deserve to be ill. IMHO, picking up poo poses a far greater risk than a quick lick from a dog.

You don't want to believe everything you read on the internet!!!!!  I've been kissing dogs all my life and have never caught anything and I've never met anyone, nor indeed heard of anyone who has caught anything from a dog.  Every cold, tummy bug, whatever, that my kids had was courtesy of their fellow human beings, including at least half a dozen incidences of head lice throughout their school years.  Several years ago I took part in a study of multiple-dog owners on this very subject and the worst thing in that study that could be attributed to a dog was an infected toe from a dog hair under the nail.

Sally

eurgh! That sounds worse than any disease!!!

I'm off to shave my dogs just in case!

Jo
(feeling slightly queasy)

Sorry about this Jo - but lets not forget that  human urine is sterile when it leaves the body...................

I'm going to out-gross you here, there were some women on This Morning a while ago who drank their own urine as an anti-ageing thing!!
I can see how it would be anti-ageing, you probably don't live long enough to get wrinkles!!

Adding onto the disease thing, I currently have that horrible nasty flu straing (fujian flu for those who are interested and will give me sympathy) and that was due to people. I knew I should have stopped that group of old men on the bus licking my face....

I'm going to change that famous saying to 'the more diseases I catch from people, the more I love my dogs'

Jo

So lovelylady and jacki r,

Neither of you have caught anything from someone else because everytime you have touched something and someone you are both off to disinfect your hands, and you are so afraid of infecting other people with your respiratory secretions when you have had a dose of the flu or other infection, you both walk around with surgical face masks on, both of you sound like very outstanding citizens i must say...well done...lol

But lady you did state that "you are a clean kind of person" "and you try to avoid things" so the above must apply, because you wouldnt want someone to catch an infection from you would you?

Ok LL and Jacki,
I will explain to you here and now all sorts of diseases people pass on to each other, and belive me they are much worse than the things "YOU PAIR SEEM TO THINK" we can catch from dog saliva.
Have a nice read :)

HIV/AIDS = passed on through intimate body secretions, contaminated blood, breast milk, sharing needles.
CHICKEN POX = Person to person contact, or by air.
DIPTHERIA = Bacteria enter the body through the nose and mouth, and also breaks in the skin, transmitted from person to person by respiratory secretions, or droplets in the air.
HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZAE INFECTIONS = Droplets in the air from a sneeze, or close conversation can be inhaled and cause infection.
HEPATITIS B = Transmitted through blood, intimate secretions, or SALIVA.
HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS/COLDSORES = Passed on through intimate secretions and Kissing
HUMAN PARAINFLUENZA VIRUSES (HPIV) = Is transmitted by inhaling respiritory secretions from infected people or by comming into contact with infected materials then touching your eyes or mouth, they are also commonly transmitted from a sneeze, and can stay alive in the air for up to an hour !
IMPETIGO = Transmitted by bed linen shared by an infected person, towels, close skin contact.
INFECTIOUS MONONUCLEOS (glandular fever) = Often spread through contact with infected SALIVA from the mouth.
FLU = The virus can live for a short time on doorknobs, telephones ,pens/pensils, keyboards, eating and drinking utensils, it is spread by touching something that has been handled by someone infected.
MENINGOCOCCAL INFECTIONS = Droplets in the air from a sneeze or close conversation can be inhaled and cause infection, many people that have the bacteria in their nose or throat never seem to develop symptoms.
TB = Is an airborn disease, spread by droplets of air from infected people when they cough or sneeze.

And these are just a few diseases humans can catch from each other, some of them life threatning!
A couple of them passed on through human saliva! I just think that you two are trying to stir up trouble on the board, how dare you say that because we allow our dogs to lick us it makes us dirty people, you two couldnt be futher from the truth! Dogs lick their behinds and privates, SO WHAT!
Most bacteria after they have done that dont survive in the mouth anyway, i really dont know what the big deal is, nobody is forcing you to read this.
I would question the quality of the relationship between you and your dogs, or your ability to be a dog owner if these are the only arguable silly comments that you can both come out with.
If you are both that worried by the germs you can get from your dogs, i would question why on earth you are both dog owners at all.

Lovelady, think you will find that is a worm carried by the cat, not the dog, and yea it can cause blindness in unborn childred. So folks litter trays out of the kitchen please.

Have to say my dogs rarely lick their bums, the vulvas and the penis yes, but bums, not that I have observed. Are my dogs in the minority?

Dont think so JackieH, mine rarely lick themselves at all i was always led to belive that if a dog licks you it was a submissive thing between pack members.
But of course we are all wrong and they are right :D
Dean

If dogs snogging is so medically healing then why don't they bottle the stuff. or give you advice to kiss your dog .
yes you can keep any animal from work surfaces ,drinking from cups. i can walk away with a plate of food on the floor and my cats and dogs will not touch it , its down to something called training.
what id like to see is an actual report from a doctor with advice to kissing a dog for its healing props. your telling us that that kissing a dog that's just eaten its own poo is ok. so you may as well not clean the poo up in your garden house if its that harmless and your fine sampling a taste of it from time to time, is i not true that dogs often eat foxs poo and get ill after say you kiss your pooch after cum on!
jackie there's no point bothering to tell these people why snogging dogs isn't clean.obviously common sense isn't present.
I have come to realize that the people who are trying to prove that drinking and tasting what's in there dogs mouths is safe infact antibacterial . love there dogs much more then most dog owners ,maybeso much  so that there obsessed with actually kissing them. after all we have to realise that these are animals and not human ,i just feel sorry for any kids that may come into contact with the roundworm infected cells , that may cause them to be blind . from the advice that mummy or daddy says its ok to kiss doggy on the lips. Im not going to post any more on this subject more fool for them we have common sense on our side. :)

Nobody's saying it's compulsory, LL, just that it's no big deal, and not nearly as dangerous as some people would have you believe. So chill, relax, and untwist your knickers!
:)

Common Sence?

Most of your links provided information on how germs can be passed from non dog contact, so you contradicted yourself there lady!
If you are that worried about the germs you "sometimes" can catch from your dog, why on earth do you own one?
If infact they are such dirty creatures, and you are so "holier than thou" it just wouldnt mix, you would be a bag of nerves just worrying about it, so why bother owning a dog?

And cats have been proven to carry more germs than a dog ever could or is even capable of carrying, and to be honest love, theres nothing more ignorant than a cat, so i fail to see how you could train yours unless you were an acomplished animal trainer you must have worked miracles with yours then !

I hope that you have also trained them not to mess in other people gardens then...unless... wait for it...you dont let them out...or they are perfect cats and they dont poo !

http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,dogs+poo,,www.wcc.govt.nz%2Fconsents%2Fdogs%2Fcapital_canines%2Fpoo.html,,aol
the law again read the danger bit
http://webferret.search.com/click?wf,+%2Bdogs+%2Bpoo,,www.enfield.gov.uk%2Fcouncil%2Fdog.htm,,altavista
I really dont think they put that up there for nothing!
its enought to prove to me that i shouldent allow my dogs to lick me or anyone else , if you disagree go tell them

Oh so your a cat hater are you and you make out your the best animal lover on the planet. yes my cats are trained as a cat hater you probably dident know there not that dumb and probably have more brains then dogs . enough sed on this subject i just saw a few of you in another light .amazing

No i own cats !

So you are making false accusations that mean and prove nothing. So take a chill pill.

I love my dogs and I allow them to lick me, but regarding canin toxicaria this is one of the main reasons you should regularly worm your dog, also there is catis toxicaria which is similar but from cats, cats poo in the garden and cover it, children digging, adults gardening etc. if it is caught it migrates to attack the eye, and can then cause blindness it is also very hard to determine which form of toxicaria a human could have contracted, and NO I am not a cat hater I have two wonderful moggies, but I think we are getting this topic totally out of propotion like Dean I have had dogs for over 40 years licking and all, but then my horses lick me and my cats, so I'm just beyond help, but do I care, nah I enjoy my animals, so has my son, who is now 27.

>>>as a cat hater you probably didnt know there not that dumb and probably have more brains than dogs>>>... your words not mine

So lady does than mean we can look forward to seeing your cats competing in flyball, agility, or gundog retrieving.  Afterall yours have been trained :D and by someone who seems to beable to work miracles in cat behaviour.
Hmmm.... let me know... and i will pay for the tickets to any shows your cats may be competing in for everyone on champdogs.
Dean

Hi lovelylady, You've given a lot of links, but you shouldn't accept every word written on the web as Gospel, especially about a subject like Toxacara which is a regular old chestnut used as a scare to fill empty newpapers during the political silly season. My link is from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, which I hope most would accept as a valid source for a problem that mainly affects the eye.

You said "i can walk away with a plate of food on the floor and my cats and dogs will not touch it , its down to something called training."

I too can leave food in easy reach, leave the room for a hour and be sure my dogs won't have touched it - though they may have drooled over it a bit. I can't do the same with my cats and I freqently find feline paw prints on tables & work surfaces. So I admit to ineptness as a cat trainer.

You also said " have come to realize that the people who are trying to prove that drinking and tasting what's in there dogs mouths is safe infact antibacterial . love there dogs much more then most dog owners ,maybeso much  so that there obsessed with actually kissing them."

I'm sure you didn't intend it, but that comes close to implying something that I do find offensive.

BTW many respected UK medical sources are now becoming increasingly concerened that we do children no favours by insisting on absolute hygeine. Cleanliness obsessed mothers now go to such lenths to avoid 'dirt and germs' that it is thought possible that because it is challenged so rarely, the child's immune system may fail to develop properly.

That is right jas thats how we build up our immune system and thats how vaccination works by exposing the body to the antigens concerned

I think I mentioned before the conditions that must be met in order for humans to catch toxocara canis.

Seriously, how do you cope with picking up dog poo? Surely that is far more dangerous than a quick dog kiss?

My dogs are wormed, they are healthy, they don't eat their own poo, and yes, they kiss me every now and then. I'm still alive, and am using a computer so I'm obviously not blind either.

Toxocara canis IS NOT transmitted by a dog kiss. It's contracted by handling poo (the poo of an unhealthy dog with worms that has been outside in sunshine for at least a week) and then transferring that to your mouth. It's why children are more at risk than adults, because we don't play where there is poo, and we wash our hands. Only then, when the larvae are in the intestine is there a chance (a small one) of it burrowing through the small intestine getting into the bloodstream where it can migrate to tissue elsewhere in the body. It does usually go undetected because there are no symptoms, except on the very, very rare occasions when it's just happened to make it's way into the eye.
Can I just say again, so we are clear worming your dog and keeping it healthy will prevent this ok?
And about leptospirosis, unless you plan on taking swimming lessons in rats urine, you should be ok.

Please stop being so melodramatic, and research things before you make a point, rather than sticking things into a search engine to find scaremongering that supports your unscientific and unfounded claims.

Jo

Really do think this is one of those topics when we can all do as we wish, and think that some where in the middle is the healthy way, both physical and mental. Am surprised though that someone in such fear of the disease they perceive that dogs and cats may pass on, bother to own one, they must be in continual paranoia, rushing around with their antibiotic cloths clearing up.

Yes did read, and laugh, that at long last people have begun to understand that we all need to be in contact with various bugs and the earlier in life the better.

Ooo er, I must confess to being a clarty besom too, because I allow licks AND I don't wash my hands in between touching them either.  Clearly I'm on borrowed time though and must cease forthwith.  Heaven knows how I survived this long.  John, do you allow your dogs to lick you?  I only ask because I wondered if this might be how you caught your Bubonic Plague :D

Lesley

your wrong jackie h its carried by dogs too and the post was about dogs licking humans not human to human so put your medical books away and stop wasting your time typing out out all those irrelevent human diseases, and dogs don't kiss they probably can smell something on your breath and want you to regurgitate some for them HMmmmm lovely!!!!

your right lovelylady! and people on here should not be telling others its ok to let your dog lick your face when it can hazardous especially for children and young adults who are more at risk from the disease from round worm which can cause blindness, as the worms come from the bum when a dog cleans itself then licks you it could have passed on the lethal worm eggs, so come on you  people stop putting people at risk and giving them the wrong info when it could affect their health!! and teach your dogs some manners

Jackie R, have you actually read the posts people have added to this thread, if so I think you will find that we have said you do as you wish and we will do the same. Your info about damage to eyes is not correct. And I think the incidence is something like 7 cases in the last 20 years all caused by the cat worm and all in the children who were infected in the womb by cats the Mother coming contact with the eggs whilst they were carrying. Could be from a litter tray but more likely from vegetables pulled from the garden.

the eggs can live in the ground for up to 3 years, you can worm your dog but it does'nt stop it from geting worms the next time you take it out , there is also a disease spread from dog to human that causes severe diareha and do not tell me that it does'nt exist cos i know someone who caught it from their dog and it took weeks to clear it up and that ain't something from some text book or search engines thats real life evidence, both the doctor and the vet told the family never let the dog lick around the mouth!

Well I am not crawling up in my loft to get the research papers down because this thread is going round in circles. You do and believe as you wish and I will do the same.

No one is telling anyone to allow the dog to like inside their mouths but it's their choice.

i have never told anyone on here to stop doing it, i don't care what you catch! but just wanted to warn other dog owners who are silly enough to think your right that they could be the unlucky victim in the next lot of statistics! cos one is too many!!

JackieR and Lovelylady, you will find this of interest, from "The Dog Owner's Veterinary Handbook".

"Very, very occasionally the Toxocara worm will affect a child who contacts the infective larvae on the ground, three weeks after they were passed by a dog, and then licks his fingers.

"It should also be noted that it is impossible for children or dogs to become infected with Toxocara either from fresh faeces or from handling or being licked by a dog. The egg must develop for three weeks before it is infectious."

So no more scaremongering nonsense about being blinded by a dog's lick, thank you.

oh get your head out of your text book for 5 minutes you can other things apart from worms for christ sake! and you've got 3 dogs so they probably lick each others bums as well before they give you... oh what do you so lovinly call it oh yea a kiss???

So you don't believe the word of vets now, JackieR? After all, they've only studied such things for years, and passed exams.

And no, dogs don't generally lick bums (their own or others') - genitals maybe, but not bums.

And please don't blaspheme. It's neither big nor clever.

JG, thanks for the info on Toxocara Canis, I knew it had to be a long time but hadn't realised it was as long as 3 weeks. So providing that the dog hasn't had a big lump of poo hanging out of it's bum for three weeks we should be ok!

What I don't understand, is why Jackie has been going on and on about blindness, even after she's been proved wrong by several people. I'm assuming she must not have been reading the replies.

I'm kind of bored of arguing the same point over and over again, for future reference, if I don't reply to this thread, it doesn't mean I've gone blind, ok??

Jo

lol @ Jo!

We must simply accept that JackieR and Lovelylady know far more about this subject than vets, ophthamologists and sundry biochemists and epidemiologists, and bow to their superior knowledge. Perhaps they ought to contact these so-called 'experts' and correct them. ;)

Hi JG, yes had read that but some where in the loft I have copies of the research papers that were done into this and it was found that there were no know cases of blindness cause by the canine Varity of the worm although it can cause cysts elsewhere and that the only confirmed cases of blindness in children were cause by feline worms and that was only when the mother became infected during pregnancy other wise it causes cysts like the canine variety

Like most thing about me it may well be out of date, but I have not received or heard of any newer research.

i do not need to be an expert to know that dogs licking your face is unhygenic, not needed, and in my experience most normal peoples reaction is ughhhhhhhhhh! but if thats how you like to interact with the canine species get on with it who cares i don't !! my dog will never be allowed to lick my face but i obviously have more class!

Self praise is no recommendation ;)
Actually I think my dogs have got more class than you`ll ever have :D

you don't know me! and can't you give a more adult reply than that oh my dads bigger than your dad!

Sooooo glad I don`t JR don`t want to either thanks :p :p :p :D :D

Christine, Spain.

stop replying to me then!!!!!!!!!

Why?????? I`m having fun, aren`t you??????? :D :D :D
:p

Christine, Spain.

no i'd rather stick pins in my eyes!

Don`t do that!!!! Think of all the germs uuurrrgghhhhh

Christine, Spain.

Oh no, Christine! Jackie's pins will be sterile!
:D