Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Friend washed up the dog bowl with our dinner plates

305 replies

23snowisfalling · 10/12/2023 11:33

This happened a few months ago but has just came up in conversation IRL.

Went round a friends casually for some dinner. As she put our plates & cutlery in the washing up bowl she also put the dog's dinner bowl in there and washed it up together with the SAME sponge.

I do laugh at this now, but at the time I was like 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳.

AIBU to think is this absolutely disgusting?!

OP posts:
TerribleWoman · 10/12/2023 12:34

23snowisfalling · 10/12/2023 11:41

For the people saying I'm being unreasonable. Do you also let your dog lick your face and sleep in your bed?

Mine licks my face occasionally. I don't love it when he does that, but he loves me which is why it happens.

My dog sleeps on a throw on my bed if I have a nap (not at night), not under the covers, but that's more because he smells of dog and sometimes has muddy feet rather than germs. We are all way to panicky about germs. Having a dog share your life is good for your intestinal Flora and protects you to a certain degree from a variety of autoimmune conditions (correlation, not perfectly).

Washing up a dog bowl with the family washing up is perfectly fine. To be fair I would probably do it last. My MIL is completely paranoid about this. When we visited she fed him only from plastic takeaway cartons which were then thrown away in the outside bin. What disease she thought she might get from a bowl he had eaten out of that had then been sterilised in the dishwasher, I am not sure.

BunnyBunnyJabberJabber · 10/12/2023 12:35

I knew a guy who shared his dinner with his Boxer dog all the time - same plate! He is still alive, and still singleGrin

JenniferJupiterVenusandMars · 10/12/2023 12:35

My dog’s bowls go in the dishwasher, my SIL puts dinner plates, saucepans etc down for the dog to lick before going in the dishwasher, that makes my stomach turn probably illogically!

rorret · 10/12/2023 12:36

Simonjt · 10/12/2023 12:24

Me too, I had Irish foster parents for a while, soap to them didn’t seem to exist, washing your hands after the loo was actively frowned upon.

wtf

BIossomtoes · 10/12/2023 12:36

Tryingmybestadhd · 10/12/2023 12:34

I’m not originally from Britain and I find the way some people wash their dishes here disgusting. I do my dishes by first rinsing everything with hot water under the tap not on a bowl then wash everything again with low pressure hot water running the whole time and then rinse everything and leave it to dry so in my case would make no difference.
if you mean she just chucked every dish in a bowl with water and dishwasher then yukkkkk . But then again I would consider it yuck even without the dog bowl .

You clearly don’t have a water meter, that’s insanely wasteful.

OfficerChurlish · 10/12/2023 12:41

I don't see what difference it makes, provided they're carnivores.

For the people saying I'm being unreasonable. Do you also let your dog lick your face and sleep in your bed? I don't generally let my dinner guests do this.

christmaspaws · 10/12/2023 12:41

I wash the cat food bowl in the sink
Guess it's separate as I put washing up liquid and boiling water in and let it soak
After I've tipped that out and rinsed it I wash it with everything else
Never been unwell from it and am immunocompromised

Tryingmybestadhd · 10/12/2023 12:42

BIossomtoes · 10/12/2023 12:36

You clearly don’t have a water meter, that’s insanely wasteful.

Not really it’s about 3 bowls of water worth and I can’t grasp how some people don’t rinse after washing with dishwasher soap , you will be ingesting it literally . I’ve lived quite a few places and travel a lot and I’ve never seen anyone doing it like here ?

KateyCuckoo · 10/12/2023 12:45

Macaroni46 · 10/12/2023 12:27

Sorry but that's gross too 🤮

Don't be ridiculous! It goes in as clean as any of our plates and washed at such a high temp, all germs are killed.

pattyparsnip · 10/12/2023 12:48

ComtesseDeSpair · 10/12/2023 11:48

I don’t like or own dogs and even I don’t see an issue with this. Human saliva germs will be on the plates and cutlery anyway, hot water and soap is fine for that so why not dog saliva? Plus people who own dogs generally let them lick their hands and faces and sit on furniture, and considering dogs don’t wipe their backsides, they basically smear traces of shit everywhere. A shared dish sponge is tame in comparison.

Actually I do wipe my dogs bum with a wet wipe . No traces of shit in my house ! .

Anisette · 10/12/2023 12:53

23snowisfalling · 10/12/2023 11:38

I wouldn't even do this. My dog bowl doesn't enter my kitchen

Why? Are you scared it'll jump up and attack you?

JemimaTiggywinkles · 10/12/2023 12:54

In the last 24 hours (for example) I've used soap at water to wash my hands multiple times after using the toilet, after sex, after cutting up raw chicken, after picking up leaves in the garden and many times "just because".

So, if soap and hot water wasn't good enough to get things clean, you wouldn't need to worry about the cat bowl being washed in the kitchen sink cos my hands (that I'm using to make your cuppa) would still have germs from urine, faeces, penis, chicken, various animal poo from the dirt etc.

Anisette · 10/12/2023 12:58

Chocolatecoveredshitpig · 10/12/2023 12:23

Yet more evidence that this place is completely fucking insane sometimes. JFC, who honestly gives this more than a nanosecond's thought? Who gives a shit? You are not going to get so much as an upset stomach from eating off crockery that may or may not have been touched by the same, (soapy), sponge that was used to wipe out a dog bowl.
I do sometimes wonder what the hell would happen to some of the posters on here if anything actually genuinely dreadful happened to them. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

Well, quite. Seriously, if we ever go to war, God forbid, these people will just have to be quietly put down.

MrsTinse · 10/12/2023 13:03

Yuck.

We wash the dogs bowls with a different sponge.

He's a much loved family pet, but at 10 years old his breath alone is enough to make you wince!

He also REALLY enjoys licking other dogs pee off walls etc. Even more so in summer when it's pungent and a little warm...🤢

Also being known to enjoy licking cow-pat.

Eurgh.

caramac04 · 10/12/2023 13:04

My dog has raw food labelled not fit for human consumption.
i wash the dog bowls separately and use a sponge purely for the bowls.

Whatthefnow · 10/12/2023 13:05

Disgusting!

So many manky people about.

StaunchMomma · 10/12/2023 13:06

I wouldn't wash them together/with same sponge or put them in the washing machine.

So gross.

DojaPhat · 10/12/2023 13:07

People here often compete to be the most 'unclean' so I can't see this would raise an eyebrow amongst some.

viques · 10/12/2023 13:07

Cat polishes his bowls to a fine shine and I put them in the dishwasher with our dishes.

We are all alive, I just checked.

pizzaHeart · 10/12/2023 13:10

It’s very gross. I wouldn’t be able to eat at hers again. She and dog can lick each other how they want, share bed, bath whatever but I didn’t sing up for this.
And my cat used to sleep practically on my pillow next to me and was sitting on my knees at mealtime - when it was only her and me but it was my choice for myself.

cristokitty · 10/12/2023 13:12

I have the same ick with cat bowls. I had to tell DH to wash them separately. Now we have a dishwasher I'll let him put them in there but it has to be a very hot wash and the bits have to be scraped out too.

10HailMarys · 10/12/2023 13:14

I used to wash them up separately but to be honest, you don’t really need to.

If you’re washing them up in hot soapy water, you’re killing germs just the same. Does it not occur to you that people also carry a ton of germs? You wouldn’t share your friends’ toothbrushes, for obvious reasons - but you presumably wash your friends’ plates and cutlery with your own if they came to your house for a meal, rather than washing them with a separate bowl etc. That’s because you know that you’re getting rid of their germs by washing the plates. Same applies to a dog bowl.

It’s also absolutely fine to put pet bowls in the dishwasher with your own stuff. If your dishwasher is killing off things like bugs from raw chicken on your knives and chopping boards, which it is, it is also killing off anything that might be on your dog bowls.

BIossomtoes · 10/12/2023 13:15

StaunchMomma · 10/12/2023 13:06

I wouldn't wash them together/with same sponge or put them in the washing machine.

So gross.

I wouldn’t put them in the washing machine either. God knows what would happen on the spin cycle. They’re fine in the dishwasher which washes hot enough to sterilise baby bottles.

Sebsaloysius · 10/12/2023 13:19

Mrsjayy · 10/12/2023 11:49

where does your dog eat ? anyway my Dh is like you he nearly fainted at the thoughtof the dogs dinner spoon going in the dishwasher I mean it is all sterilised and clean. although I do wash the bowls by hand for quickness.

I had such a lovely image of your dog eating his/her dinner with a spoon, until the penny dropped!B 😄

Emeraldrings · 10/12/2023 13:19

We used to wash our dog bowl up at the end. So everything else would be washed up and then his bowl. Separate cloths too and washing up bowl throughly washed (I think my mum used to bleach it which I think is excessive).