Howcum dogs and vultures and hyenas and raccoons and other scavengers don’t get food poisoning when they eat rotten meat?
A person eats a day old ham sammich and they die sometimes. A dog can eat a week old pound of hamburger sitting in the sun and doesn’t even get sick. Why is it?
They do – they just do it where you can’t see them. Likewise, humans often eat nasty stuff with no ill effects, or effects small enough to ignore.
Dogs get what would be called food poisoning in humans–vomiting and diarrhea from ingested bacterial toxins–pretty frequently. We just don’t typically use the term food poisoning. It goes in the chart as gastrenteritis of unknown origin, or sometimes suspected deranged appetite or garbage gut. And yes, sometimes dogs die from it. The dog is old or debilitated by other issues, or the owner doesn’t bring the dog in till it’s so sick we can’t pull it through, or there are unforseen complications. In other words, the same group of human patients who die from food poisoning.
Trust me, if you’ve ever seen or smelt the effects of a dog having gotten into some rotten food it wasn’t supposed to, you’d know they can get food poisoning. Part of why they don’t get as sick from it as we do is that from birth they are always snuffling around in the dirt, eating questionable things, etc., so their immune system is probably pretty robust. I know that vultures as well have an extremely powerful system to begin with, and stronger stomach acids than most mammals.
Isn’t a dog’s saliva antiseptic? If so, that may help the dog’s immune system head off milder cases of potential food poisoning.
For especially virulent cases, however, a dog is just as vulnerable as a human.
They lick their own butts and then they kiss us. Dogs obviously have very strong constitutions. 
And their owners?
A bit like the farmer who said as he kissed the cow: “Every man to his own taste.”
I have heard from many advocates of raw diets that as scavengers, dogs have much shorter digestive tracts than humans, and this somehow allows them to better tolerate spoiled or contaminated foods. I do not have any sort of peer reviewed citation for that claim though.
Those are all pretty weak. You DON’T see dogs dying from food poisoning but very rarely. And anyways, in the wild, hyenas, wolves, bears, many other scavengers eat old decaying dead things constantly, and in some cases scavengers live EXCLUSIVELY off rotten dead things, but they must not get sick or they couldn’t live. Yeah dogs do get sick, but they rarely die from food poisoning unless its a toxic substance, not just from say eating something gone bad from the fridge or an old dead bird.
Vultures are a good example. They must be immune or they couldn’t live.
The saliva being antiseptic isn’t believable either. The best thought I have is that they have some kind of bacteria in their stomach that kills the bad bacteria.
What sort of a person kisses a cow? Could be a pervert I suppose that didn’t like sheep.
You people were no help. I googled and found the answer myself:
Why don’t scavenging animals get food poisoning?
Catrin Sherwin , Blackburn Lancashire
Answers
They do and some of them die as a result. However, species that rely on scavenging for much of their food have evolved counter-measures. They tend to be resistant to the toxins and microbes contained in their food. However, some do avoid things that are likely to be harmful or of little nutritional value. For example, most animals will not eat fresh manure that comes from their own species, although some relish the manure of other species. In fact, disgusting though it sounds, domestic dogs will often eat faeces from pet cats.
Other animals, such as rats, taste unfamiliar food cautiously and avoid it if it makes them ill. Dogs, hyenas and the like, eat whatever looks tempting, but at the least hint of untoward symptoms, vomit it up at once. Coyotes do this so smartly that poisoning them is an advanced art. Not only do they avoid anything suspicious, but the only poisons that will work on them are those that are so dangerous that the merest taste is fatal, such as fluoroacetates. Trappers of pest coyotes have largely resorted to “getters”, which shoot cyanide directly into the victim’s mouth to kill them immediately. Vomiting does no good after that…
In these days of growing conservation-awareness, some people put defensive killer devices round the necks of their livestock. In this way only those predators that attack live animals are affected when they ingest the substance contained in the neck device.
Jon Richfield , Dennesig South Africa
Scavenging animals seldom get food poisoning because most bacteria that decompose carcasses are neither toxic nor pathogenic. Bacteria that are likely to cause illness tend to get killed in the stomach, which is highly acidic, unless they are present in very large numbers. Some scavengers, for example vultures, may have especially acidic stomachs which take care of bacteria, but even they get sick occasionally.
Scavenging animals are not particularly special in this regard. Humans don’t necessarily get sick from eating carrion. Indeed, some people eat game meat that has been “hung” (left hanging in the open), so it has decomposed slightly and has a more interesting flavour.
Zen Faulkes , Department of Zoology University of Melbourne
It is a common misconception that scavenging omnivores simply eat any old decaying food and survive only by having a stronger constitution. In fact, intelligence is their most important weapon. Studies of rats show that they are extremely good at sampling new foods and they can assess from smell and taste their probable nutritional value. They are always suspicious of new foods and will taste them very cautiously.
Rats also have special “one- trial” food avoidance abilities which enable them to learn the link between a single exposure to a particular taste and an illness that develops later. Under normal circumstances, without the involvement of food-related illness, rats will learn associations only if events are closely and repeatedly paired in time.
But food is treated quite differently and a long- lived rejection of a particular food can be acquired after just one exposure if an adverse reaction follows, even if the sickness develops more than 30 minutes later. It is likely that similar long-lived food aversions in humans, for example, permanent rejection of shellfish after just one unpleasant experience, share the same evolutionary origins.
Editor
You’re running under some serious misconceptions here.
First off, as crazycatlady said and your own links mention, dogs and other animals DO die from food poisoning. What more do you want? Humans eat several things that are are low level poisons for other animals and animals can eat things we shouldn’t. Why would you even think that “they must not get sick or they couldn’t live”?
Your original premise is faulty. Animals DO sometimes die after eating bad stuff as do SOME humans.
“Some” and “Sometimes” are not the definitive answer. The fact is scavengers live off meat that would kill a human. The linked answer shows why-
Noone said anything remotely like that. And my propostion is not flawed, its a fact many animals do live and thrive eating meat that would kill a human.
I stupidly thought this was a forum of people with access to real answers, not dumb, uninformed opinions and guesses. WTF do they charge for membership to this board? Its as worthless as any of the other 2000000000 on the net that are free.
I see around 16 animals a day, around half are dogs. I see one dog every 2 or 3 days with gastroenteritis that is likely due to indiscriminate ingestion. Few die, then again I do not think a high percentage of human food poisoning cases die either, although you might wish you would.
Botulism is seen in horses (I just do small animal work) and many/most of those cases do die.
Moderator here: Please don’t post extensive quotes from other copyrighted works. Small bits, and then a link. This is violation of copyright law.
Welcome to the boards. You allowed exactly 1 hour and 14 minutes for members to respond to your thread. You decided to Google the answer during that time frame. How much happier you might have been if you had Googled first, since it’s that easy.
And, your “proof” is merely letters to the editor of New Scientist. Possibly all factual. But possibly not.
vetbridge posted after your rant with some factual info.
If you choose to stay around the board, try to have a bit more patience, and try to not rant in General Questions. We have other forums.