Eh, it’s my cat. She’s fine. I’d drink the milk and totally have. I see no difference between that and if I had a toddler and the toddler drank the milk. I would actually be more grossed out about the toddler germs.
I answered “Other”. In this particular case it’s “No, but only because I hate cats.” That being said, my dog friggin’ loves to lick the mouths of beer bottles and is surprisingly good (he’s a big oaf) at being sneaky about it. Dork of a dog. I still drink the beer.
I regularly feed my dogs and cats scraps right off my own fork while eating dinner. My cat loves when I eat cereal because I let him sample the milk from my spoon. He occasionally sleeps right next to my face and likes to wake me up by licking my eyeballs.
Whatever germs he has, I have. We’ve been sharing them since he started living here. He licked a bit of my milk? Who cares?
If it’s something I really, really want, and I can’t easily replace it, I may scoop a bit out and then drink. Otherwise, I pour it out and get more.
Though this has only happened with dogs, not cats for me. My cats never did all those snooty cat things I always see described online. No jumping on my keyboard, no getting on the table or knocking things over, and no jumping on me to wake me up. They did scratch up things and urinate where they shouldn’t, but that’s about it.
Our African Grey has a play area in my man-cave. The water dish doesn’t lock in place, so he spills it for fun. My workaround involves offering him a drink from time to time from my copper Moscow Mule mug.
When I think he might be thirsty, I fill the mug with water and offer it, saying, “wanna drink of water?” He takes a few drinks and then I drink the rest.
We’ve reached a point now where he says, “wanna drink of water?” signaling me, his trained primate, to get him a drink.
Not liquid milk, but I regularly share my vanilla ice cream with Havoc and whipped cream with Caelan then continue using the same spoon to feed my face. Pixel and Brindle don’t like dairy at all, so they never bother to ask for any.
All of the time: whether it’s Link eating out of my bowl or him getting a drink of water from my glass. Or the cockatoo wanting whatever I have. But those 2 are special because one is almost 15 and the other is almost 30. The rest of the horde get treated but don’t get to treat themselves.
I got used to sharing by having 3 boys. And they made much yuckier backwash than either of the 2 special critters ever have.
My husband used to go to bed with a glass of water on the nightstand, for when he woke up thirsty. He’s a sound sleeper and I’m an insomniac, so I heard when the cat got up there and took a few sips of it. (In multiples of three; that’s how he rolls. Lap-lap-LAP. Lap-lap-LAP.)
After a couple of weeks of this, I told him about it. Now he uses a glass that has a lid.
I think it would be pretty much the same if it had been the dog, except the dog probably would have knocked the water glass over.
Sure, I’m probably ingesting cat germs anyways. My cat Buffy used to drink my mother’s lemonade all the time. Maggie routinely tries to steal my food. If I threw out everything my cats stole from me, our grocery bill would go through the roof.
First, don’t make assumptions about gender. Second, I know mine was clean before he licked it. Third, are you suggesting that cats don’t do this? The rough tongue is what makes it such a good cleaner. I’m with Elfkin.
Dog licks are the best preventive of scaring there is.
Dogs & cats do not die from self cleaning but humans can’t regularly survive injesting their own waste.
A few minutes after doing it, their mouth is relatively free of that set of germs I have been told.
72 and not dead yet.
I find my pickishness about food cleanliness is in direct relation to how hungry I am, how much I want that food item and the possibility of food replacement.
I have found that necessity has changed how many peoples see stuff like this.
Isn’t it great we live in a time & place where we can be picky if we want.