Beware the Smooch, Fido

Big news for pets with owners: You can get very sick from hanging around humans.

According to a new scientific study, people carry all kinds of weird germs on their bodies. You never know where humans have been or what they’ve been doing. And since pets don’t see owners suddenly give themselves tongue baths, they must assume that owners are pretty careless about everyday hygiene. Which clearly turns owners into potential disease carriers.

The study, presented to a recent meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, revealed the spread of virulent microbes from the bodies of healthy humans to pets, seriously infecting the animals, often months later.

Until recently, the human-to-pet infection linkage was difficult to prove. But Shelley Rankin, a University of Pennsylvania microbiologist, says veterinarians now see more infection of domestic animals by owners, often involving serious drug-resistant staph infections that cause everything from simple pimples to lethal blood infections. “People think it only goes one way, from animals to humans,” said Rankin, who lives with a fastidious cat named Woody. “This shows the other side of the story.”

Of course, doctors knew of germ transmission from human-to-human contact; that’s why hospitals and restaurants warn workers to wash their hands frequently. Now they’ve traced germ transmission through person-to-pet contact.

Pets have long known they can become severely tired from human contact--an owner’s insatiable need, for instance, to watch cats bat plastic balls around or people’s penchant for throwing useless sticks across the yard time after time despite a dog’s persistent fetching. And what veteran household animal hasn’t put up with wearing a bow or jingly bell on some special day when tiny pieces of fragrant foods are available for kitchen mooching? But few pets knew the real dangers of serious illnesses from close human contact.

Some important health tips for pets: Don’t put human hands in your mouth unless you smell fresh soap. And at all costs avoid the human face, especially the nose and mouth, prime germ-breeding areas despite faint mint or flower smells. Never, ever, lick humans there, no matter how much they beg or talk like babies.