Hardly Anyone Is Feeding Their Dog Safely, a US Study Suggests

A new study has found that only a small percentage of dog owners are aware of the official guidelines for safe handling of their pet's food.

How pet food should be stored and served, how food bowls should be cleaned and maintained, and how to report problems with food and treats are covered in these guidelines. The problem is that not enough people know how to keep their pets and owners healthy.

The researchers want the guidelines to be more widely publicized and followed up with scientific research to demonstrate their benefits.

The team from North Carolina State University says that pet feeding involves interplay between the pet, the owner and the food.

This interaction creates the opportunity for mutual exchange of microbial contaminants from food or water, dishes, and the food storage or preparation environment, which can cause health consequences for both humans and pets.

The research involved surveys of 417 dog owners. Less than 5 percent of respondents knew that there were guidelines to follow, and only 8 percent knew that the FDA website was where to find them.

The survey group followed several of the official guidelines, such as checking their dog food for damage and not using the dog bowl as a scoop. Almost all of the dog owners did not feed their dogs raw food.

The FDA recommendations are not well followed. Only 12 percent of dog owners wash their pets bowls every day, and only 22 percent wash their hands with soap and hot water before handling food. 13 percent clean the food scoop with soap and hot water after it has been used.

The researchers point out that we tend to underestimate how sanitary we are, and some of that bias could be present in this study as well. Dog owners could be doing a lot more to minimize the risk of infections based on this sample.

There have been multiple outbreaks of both humans and dogs becoming ill after exposure to dog food.

The risks may be amplified in households with children and/or individuals who have been diagnosed with a disease.

The team measured the differences that the FDA guidelines made, reporting significant decreases inContamination on the bowls. Only 8 percent of those involved in the study said they would keep up with all of the protocols.

One of the problems that can develop as a result is the spread of drug-resistant E. coli, which is one of the reasons why pet food dishes are common among household surfaces that are contaminated withbacteria.

While this research used a relatively small sample size and didn't go into too much detail in terms of bacterial analysis, it's clear that more could be done by both dog owners and health bodies to make sure both pets and humans are kept as safe as possible.

Future studies should consider the risk of other microbiological agents or toxins, as well as the risk of specific pathogenicbacterial species, according to the researchers.

The research has been published.