Have you ever in your life eaten dinner on a plate, left the plate on the counter overnight without rinsing, and then used the same plate for breakfast the next morning? Of course you haven’t! Just thinking about it is enough to make you spin around in your stomach.
Even so, a lot of us feed our dogs the same food over and over again without cleaning it up. Or, maybe we’re really into it and our dog’s dish comes out clean because we clean it daily with our own dishes. Can you use the same sponge on your dishes and his? Let’s go down and get dirty about keeping the dog bowl clean.
Phloem! What grows there?
It turns out there are some good reasons to follow basic guidelines for keeping your dog’s dishes and eating areas clean and disinfected, for both your dog’s and your family’s health. Specifically a bunch of very scary sounding bacteria that love to grow in a dog’s mouth and on dishes.
William (Bill) Burkholder, DVM, PhD, DACVN, and Charlotte Conway, MS, from Veterinary Center at the Food and Drug Administration say that the type and amount of bacteria on your dog’s treats depends on the type of food you feed and your dog’s oral hygiene. When your dog eats, germs from the mouth are transferred to the bowl and vice versa. In addition, diets that include raw meat or moist foods produce more bacteria than dry foods.
Burkholder and Conway said“What type of bacteria grows in the bowl depends on factors such as the animal’s environment, exposure and oral hygiene, but possible examples include Staphylococcus aureus, Pasteurella multocida and species of Corynebacterium, Streptococcus , Enterobacteria, Neisseria, Moraxella, Bacillus and, less often, Salmonella and Pseudomonas. “
In other words, germs and lots of them. Germs can be especially harmful to human infants and dogs and immunocompromised adults.
Keep it clean
Now that we know clearly that regular cleaning is definitely required, how often should we do it? If you feed your dog dry crumbs, ideally you should clean the plate once a day. If you feed raw meat or wet food, the plate should really be washed after each meal.
Water dishes shouldn’t be overlooked either but it looks like we could just do that. One NSF . 2011 study See which items in the typical household are best. Coming in at number 4 is the neglected dog drink. These things need to be cleaned every day in an ideal world. If you’re like most of us, it’s just a pipe dream, so give your fur baby a treat and wash that water bowl often.
Your puppy’s food and water should be placed on a feeding pad rather than directly on the floor. Dogs love to give their bowls and sometimes the entire area around it is a long post-feed licking festival. This is especially true if some of the food falls out of the bowl. Leaving the dishes on the carpet ensures she won’t directly lick the floor and absorb the harmful chemicals found in many floor cleaning products.
If your dog has a plastic or wooden plate, beware of scratches or cracks in the bowl. These crevices are perfect breeding grounds for germs in abundance. If the disc is scratched or cracked, it’s time to replace it.
Another great tip is to always have a few bowls on hand at any given time. That way, you always have fresh and clean food on hand when it’s time to eat.
Sponge or not Sponge?
Sponges are always a hot topic in any discussion about germs. One 2017 kitchen sponge research sent the media and home cooks into a frenzy when they compared a kitchen sponge to a toilet bowl in terms of bacteria density. Bleach! Replacing your kitchen sponge every one to two weeks and running it through the dishwasher or microwave every two days seems to be the measure of choice for colony control.
That’s all well and good but should you use a kitchen sponge to clean your dog’s dishes? In short, no. If sponges are your cleaning tool of choice, you should use one that’s designated for your puppy’s dish. That will reduce cross-contamination, and as long as you use sponges that are disinfected and replaced regularly, you can skip the whole comparison to a toilet thing.
Dishwasher for the winner
The dishwasher is your best bet for keeping your dog’s dishes clean and disinfected. The hot, descaling water pumped over that puppy will kill all the germs that might have resided there. You simply cannot get your hand sanitizer hot enough to come close to the disinfecting capacity of your dishwasher.
Even plastic dishes should be dishwasher safe, as long as you place them on the top rack. Just make it a habit to leave an empty space for the dog’s bowl and let them run through each time you run the dishwasher. Your family, home and beloved dog will be better for it.
How often do you wash your dog’s dishes? What is your cleaning method of choice? Does water get as much attention as food?
