Is a dogs mouth cleaner than a humans mouth?

[The Redneck]

Actually, human bite wounds are fairly common. It's not that someone takes a good healthy chomp out of someone else so much--but when your fist meets up suddenly and dramatically with someone else's mouth there are hard semi-sharp things in there, so hospitals do treat quite a few wounds from human teeth. When they do, infection is usually a much more major concern than stitching up the knuckles.

Moreover, not only is a dog's saliva's pH different from that of a human, but humans eat sugar--a lot of sugar, and any biology student can tell you that if you want to make bacteria grow sugar is the best thing you can feed it.

Also dogs salivate copiously--to put it bluntly, they're constantly washing their own mouths out (This is why cat's mouths, on the other hand, are nasty. Also, cat-bites are puncture wounds, which not only are more likely to infect but are harder to clean, while dog-bites are usually lacerations).

However, as Big D mentioned, dogs' mouths often have different kinds of bacteria than humans', and the stuff that wouldn't affect you at all or might go so far as to put plaque on your teeth might make your dog very sick--and vice versa.

So if you're french-kissing your dog, you're probably going to be one sick SOB.

On the other hand, if you're french-kissing your dog, you're already one sick SOB...



And don't knock the 'licking themselves' thing. All of us would do the same if we could.