So I’ve heard two condradictory things about cat saliva:
(A) Cat spit, like ant spit, has antibacterial properties, which helps keep their fur clean.
(B) Cat spit is full of really nasty germs, which is why cat bites tend to get infected.
Which one is it? Does the saliva kill some germs and not others? What’s the straight dope?
I think both are true – because all germs are not alike.
Cat spit may help kill germs that would hurt cats (or at least it helps remove them from their fur).
But cat spit contains germs that can be very bad for humans. (I know this well, I spent several days in the hospital in December due to what appeared to be a minor bite from a neighbor’s cat. Something called Pasteurella Multocida. Not fun.)
I learned in lab bitch school about pasteurella multocida, so I want to say that cats are dirty. They do lick their own buttholes. However, I do work in a lab that includes microbiology, so what I will do it swab my cats’ mouths and my own mouth and judge subjectively whose is ‘dirtier’. I’m not going to do a full ID on everything in there because that’s a lot of work, but I can generally differentiate benign (non hemolytic) vs coliforms (ass bacteria) visually. I will report back in a few days.
PS for the pedants: yes I know that this is not a scientifically rigorous experiment and is pretty much anecdotal, but unless you have a micro lab at your disposal, STFU.
Thanks! Much appreciated.
You folks are missing some factors, though your answers may be quite true.
The reason cat bites are likely to get infected is in the shape of the teeth. They’re narrow and pointy, so you get a puncture wound instead of a tear. It’s hard to clean a puncture and get antibiotics into it.
Cat spit is central to cat allergies among people. It’s not the fur, and it isn’t the dander, it’s the dried spit. Cats groom themselves a lot, and the spit dries and flakes off.
I’m not aware of anti-bacterial properties, but cats have a spiky, brushlike tongue. All the spikes are aimed back toward the throat, so they swallow much of the fur they lick-brush out.
The results are in, and surprised me.
I swabbed the mouths of my two cats and my own mouth as a ‘control’. I plated them out to blood agar (BAP) and to McConkey (basically only grows ass bacteria). There was no growth on the McConkey’s from any of the specimens. BAP is non selective and grows everything; that being said, the absolute numbers of bacteria growing on each plate was similar between cats and human. The makeup of the flora growing on each was different though: lots of alpha hemolytic (probably viridans strept) on the human plate, which is normal flora. No beta hemolytic colonies on any cat or human plates. What grew mostly on the cat plates were several types of white and greyish non hemolytic colonies. What these are, I don’t know. Could be something bad, maybe pasteurella, could be benign. I don’t know what normal cat mouth flora looks like.
Also, my mouth seemed ‘wetter’ than the cats’. This mini experiment does not control for the amount of bacteria picked up on each swab. Could be that I didn’t pick up as much bacteria swabbing the cats’ mouths vs my mouth. Also also, cats don’t like getting their mouths swabbed, so I probably spent less time inside theirs vs mine (even though I tried to keep it the same)
Verdict from this bullshit experiment: My cats’ mouths are fairly clean. I swabbed my dog’s mouth once and ass bacteria filled the plate.
After all the food I’ve shared with cats in my lifetime, I wasn’t planning to change, but I am nevertheless relieved by your results, Nunavut Boy.
Yes, kitty, you can haz (some of my) cheezburger!
Given your username, were you ever really in a position to complain about what’s in anyone else’s mouth?
Well, I wouldn’t eat dung and spit mixed together. That’s just gross.
Do you have a cite for that? I ask because I keep seeing “cat allergies are from X, not from Y,” but never any empirical evidence. It must be something, but why so many different claims?
Oh, and Nunavut Boy? Awesome.
Doesn’t it get mixed with your spit when you eat it?
I remember my dad grossing me out by telling me “it all gets mixed together in your stomach anyway” when I was a picky kid who didn’t want certain foods to touch each other on my plate.
I would think that they all could be true, for some people. Isn’t it likely that there are multiple types of ‘cat allergies’, with some people allergic to the hair, some to cat dander, etc.? There are certainly all kinds of food allergies, with different people allergic to different types of food.
When I was diagnosed with asthma several years ago, my doctor sent me in for a short “how to handle asthma and allergies” course with a respiratory therapist at Community Hospital. He taught me a lot.
He said cats are an asthma trigger for a lot of people. He said it’s the dried saliva that’s the allergen, not the hair. He also said cat allergies develop over time. Some patients tell him, “I can’t be allergic to Luther. I had him for 5 years.” That’s about how long it takes to develop.
That was my source. HOWEVER, I just looked up cat allergies at WebMD and at About.com. Both sources disagreed with mine. They said the saliva, the dander, and the urine are all allergenic. About.com said the allergens are very small, and can remain airborne for a long time.
No problem.
A book I was reading last night said that every part of the cat is a potential allergen. Mind you, it also said that cats can sense earthquakes, so I don’t think it’s %100 reliable.
Of course they can! They can tell when the building is shaking. My cats puffed up their tails during earthquakes.
Whether they can sense earthquakes before humans can is a separate question.