Last night my little girl decided she didn’t like her ham. So she threw a piece to the dogs, whereupon the Scotty grabbed it (beating our much-older Basset hound).
I, of course, told Sophie not to feed dogs at the table, especially pork as it gives them worms. Being 6, she did what you would expect 6 year-olds to do: ask “Why” questions to the end of time. Two that I kind of hemmed and hawed at are the basis of this thread:
Why does pork give dogs worms?
Why doesn’t pork give me worms?
Just to let y’all know, the ham in question was very well done - I left it in the oven a bit too long and it dried out (which is why Sophie didn’t like it). We don’t like undercooked pork products, even our bacon is very crispy.
Pork doesn’t give dogs worms anymore than it gives people worms. That’s to say that, if there are parasitic worms in the pork and it’s not cooked well enough to kill them, then either you or your dog could get infected by eating the pork. But if the pork is cooked enough, both you and the dog are safe.
In fact, aren’t dogs LESS susceptible to infection than humans given the same piece of meat? A dog’s digestive tract is much shorter, so the meat is in the body for shorter period of time.
As others have said, no worry for worms from cooked pork. However, it should be mentioned that pancreatitis can be caused by ingestion of fatty meat, with ham high on the list. Each holiday season I see a hand full of cases, some of which are fatal.
