I left my electric toothbrush on the floor to charge, but I didn’t think of the dogs when I chose a location. I moved it somewhere higher when the thought crossed my mind about an hour later. In that time I didnt see the dogs touch or lick it but I can’t be sure that they didn’t, since my attention was focused on something else.
the toothbrush has been soaking in a solution of a 4 in 1 cleaner and water for 2 days now.
Is there anything else I can do to make sure the dogs’ germs don’t spread to my teeth?
A dog’s mouth is cleaner than your mouth. You are being germophobic. Have you not brushed your teeth in two days? Eeewwww.
(Can’t a person swap out the brush heads of an electric toothbrush? I haven’t really looked at one since the late 1960s - an Oral-B soft bristle manual brush works for me.)
Please explain what “dog germs” are, and how they can negatively affect your teeth.
Really, I’m intrigued.
At any rate, dip it in a bleach solution, which will kill both real and imagined germs. (NOT straight bleach, I don’t know but I suspect it could melt the bristles. )
just because dogs will eat rotten animals and their own and other animals shit, then people think that a dog’s mouth is full of germs. dog drool washes their mouth clean.
you will need to rinse the brush a lot to get that 4 in 1 cleaner (whatever that is) off.
a drop of bleach in a couple glasses worth of water make a good disinfectant solution for wiping or soaking.
Soak it in 1:10 diluted household bleach for 10 minutes. That’s considered good enough for any microbiology lab that’s not handling extremely dangerous pathogens.
But you probably expose yourself to “dog germs” constantly. Do you wash your hands every time the dog licks you? Do you wash your hands every time you touch something that’s been in the dog’s mouth? If you don’t, you’re probably putting “dog germs” in your mouth and nose and eyes every day. And you’re no worse for the wear. Really, your immune system does a good job, and healthy dogs don’t harbor dangerous pathogens.
Dog germs are impervious to any disinfectant. They can also crawl extremely fast, so the whole toothbrush is contaminated and will have to be thrown out.
Or you could just resign yourself to the fact that the world is covered in germs, and trying to avoid them all is impossible. Besides, the only known effects of dog germs are a feeling of unconditional love and a tendency to prick up your ears when someone says “Squirrel!”
Just use the damn thing. Rinse it off in hot water for 10 seconds and you’ve diminished the bacterial/viral load. Has a dog never licked your face? Sure there is some minute chance infection or something, but it’s nothing to worry about. Are you really old, a baby, or do you have a compromised immune system? If not, don’t worry about it.
If you’re that paranoid, just dunk it in boiling water for a minute or two. Soaking it in “4 in 1 cleaner” (whatever that is) for 48 hours is just ridiculous.
I’d just give it a good wash under the tap, to be honest.
I mean, that’ll work fine but I suspect dropping the brush in some rubbing alcohol (which is cheap) for a minute then rinsing it off well will work fine and no worries about ratios. If any alcohol remains on the brush it is not toxic to you (certainly not in those minute amounts…obviously you do not want to drink rubbing alcohol).
And as mentioned there is nothing to be particularly worried about when it comes to “dog germs”. If you live with a dog you are exposed to dog germs all the time and you apparently have not died of it yet.
Dogs’ mouths probably aren’t much cleaner than ours in terms of absolute number of bacteria, but they generally contain very few bacteria that can infect us. Dogs have bacteria that can infect other dogs, by and large.
So unless you’re a Great Dane with wonderful keyboarding skills, you don’t have to worry about dog germs on your toothbrush. Certainly the soak it’s had is more than enough.
I have four dogs so I imagine me, my house and my vehicles are crawling with “dog germs” 24/7. The dilute bleach solution is fine, soaking a toothbrush for days in disinfectant is uber-neurotic. Me? I would just run it under hot water for a bit and use it.
That too. I think you’re being germaphobic; germs, bacteria, mites, worms and other invisible organisms are everywhere. (Don’t google:images eyelash mites if you’re squeamish. LOL.)
they’re not my dogs–I was in the house of someone who owned dogs. And I don’t trust them–I’ve seen their designated peeing and pooping area, and it’s not good. Their feet touch that ground all the time, and sometimes they scratch their heads with their hind feet, which comes close to touching their mouths.
I’ve brushed my teeth with a tradtional brush in the meantime, but I’d hate to have those dogs ruin a newly purchased electric toothbrush–they don’t exactly come cheap.
Also, the container for my solution wasn’t big enough for me to submerge the entire brush–the handle is sticking out. 2 additional concerns stem from that:
If I proceed to repeat the procedure for the handle, which is the part that goes into the charger, can I damage the handle, if it is indeed water-adverse, since that issue hasn’t been settled yet.
If I don’t, and my hands touch the handle daily, could I facilitate the germs’ spreading when I cup my hands to gather water for me to rinse?