Friend washed up the dog bowl with our dinner plates

[23snowisfalling]

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?!

I should add that I change the kitchen cloths, and tea towels etc. several times a day. Washing up sponge (sponge mommy) goes in the dishwasher too. So, I'm not completely vile...

Human saliva also has healing properties. I’m still not that keen on anyone other than my best friends licking me, tbh.

My Inlaws do this and it makes me sick to my stomach!! Try to avoid eating there at all costs 🤢

There's nothing environmentally friendly about binning a sponge every day though is there? And it's such an unnecessary expense to have a new one every day, it must be costing you at least £20+ a month to use one a day? I'm not trying to have a go at you, I'm just baffled.

I think it's absolutely fine to use the same sponge for your dog's bowls every day, but obviously I ca see that you don't feel the same - could I convince you to try sanitising them in a way that feels acceptable to you rather than binning them? You could for example have a sealed container to keep the used ones in if your worried they are germy, and sanitise them once a week with a Milton tablet, or diluted bleach. Or stick them through the wash, with the dettol for washing if you want the extra reassurance. Or give them a good spray with dettol after use.

And is the residue from their arse licking antiseptic too.

Foul

Ooh that's interesting I didn't know human saliva was antiseptic!

we're far more likely to get germs from fellow humans than from dogs, so this wouldn't bother me at all.

Mumsnet is always full of fascinating insights into how other people live.

You must do so much more laundry than I do! 😅

That's so gross 🤢 I have two dogs and their bowls are washed separately and with a different sponge.

A dog's mouth is full of nasty bacteria that can cause very serious infections to humans, including sepsis.

Our vet told us to avoid being licked on the face or any broken skin if we can possibly help it.

I've always washed dog bowls in the same water and with the same scourer or sponge as the rest of the washing up, albeit left till last, and my (ex-nurse) mother did the same when I was a child. When I got a diswasher, they went in there with everything else.

Amazingly, despite having these apparently shockingly slack habits and endless exposure to canine germs for more than 40 years, I've only had 2 stomach upsets in my entire life. One of them was traced to the kitchens at a pub where I'd eaten, so nothing to do with dogs, and the other (noro) I got when staying at an entirely pet-free house.

One of our dogs is a Labrador. She makes sure both dog bowls are left not just clean, but polished to a high shine!

However, if they do get washed up, it isn’t done with the washing up brush/sponge used for our washing up. I might do it in the same bowl of water, at the end of the washing up, but I rinse the bowl out with hot water afterwards.

😅I've got loads of ecloths and ecloth tea towels - just do approx one wash a week of these so that's not the source of my big washing pile. It is DS (teenager) - he creates a massive amount for one person!

I can see I have mixed standards here though - happy to let the dog sleep on top of the bed/wash his bowl with ours but not so happy to use the same surface cloth or tea towel all day...😊

@Willyoujustbequiet I read a story a few days ago about a woman who lost both of her hands and legs to a rare form of sepsis after her dog licked a scratch on her arm. So that sounds like very sensible advice from your vet!

The sharing of the microbiome between humans and pets is actually very good for health and great for immunity although I think the hot water will kill off everything in this instance anyway.
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/owning-a-pet-boost-gut-health

The ultimate first world problem. Maybe you should nuke the dog's bowl from space to be sure.

Every breath you take and every bit of your skin is teeming with microbes. Your eyelashes have mites.

From the American Museum of Natural History: "An estimated 30 trillion cells in your body—less than a third—are human. The other 70-90% are bacterial and fungal. Ninety-nine percent of the unique genes in your body are bacterial. Only about one percent is human."

But do obsess about the dog's bowl if it makes you happy.

Judging by some of the responses on this thread I'll take that with a pinch of salt

The washing machine tho 😂

I need a Baileys or 10.

All dishes dog and human go in the dishwasher no problem. Dog often eats off human plates if he is having steak or lamb etc. He sleeps on my bed too. We are lucky to have these loyal creatures in our lives.

😭😂😂😂

I am not above using the cats bowl as a ramekin, tbh 😭😅 and I do sometimes…

I 'Lady and the Tramp' with my cat, so I'm not too fussed.

My DP is so weird and anal about this its actually nearly giving me the ick over his total lack of common sense about it. He hates that I wash the dogs bowls and spoons together with ours. He'd have kittens if he knew that, sometimes, I use our human spoons to put the dogs food out 😬

Good enough for Prince Harry?

My dogs bowls get washed up with everything else, although they go in last.
He also finishes my cereal off out of my cereal bowl and sleeps on my bed.
He doesn't lick my face though as he's not a licky dog so he doesn't tend to lick people.