Poll of the night! Do you wash your hands?

[Prin]

Do you wash your hands EVERY time you touch your pets?

I grew up with doggies and maybe it's gross, but I don't. If I'm preparing food or something, I'll wash my hands before, but not necessarily because I've touched my doggies. Also, I don't mind petting my furries while I'm eating (another thing non-pet owners find repulsive).

I just find it funny when non-pet owners dry their skin out by washing their hands (and making their kids wash their hands) after EVERY single contact with doggies, even if they're 5 minutes apart. (Like touch, wash, touch, wash...)

Are doggies that disgusting?
I know kitties are. Just kidding.

(the poll is anonymous so you can tell the truth)

just gimme a minute to make it.

[rainbow]

I only do when:

1. I'm going to prepare food whether I've touched the dogs or cats or not.
2. After I go to the bathroom.
3. After I pick up dog poop.
4. After I clean the litterbox.

[Prin]

Pretty well the same as me. I was gonna ask about bathroom things, but the stats are 1 in 4 so I figured the other 3 would lie anyway.

Have you ever met one of these people who think that the second the contact has stopped, the hands need washing?

Besides, our doggies and kitties are good for our immunity anyway.

[cpietra16]

everything rainbow just said

[Angies Man]

I pretty much wash my hands a lot. With soap.

I don't mind the puppy's smell, her hair is pretty clean, but . . .

Maybe I'm a little compulsive but I wash my hands after shaking hands with people, using the restroom, driving the car, working in the yard, driving, handling food (I'd rather handle poop than raw chicken ) and on and on and on.

Took Bact. in college--it was quite a learning experience.

[rainbow]

Oh, I forgot about the chicken and hamburger. I was my hands before and after handling raw chicken, turkey and hamburger.

[Dog Dancer]

No OC here - I wash my hands most of the time if I'm going to start cooking (although if I had to be really honest I'd say sometimes I forget - but mostly not). They say our desks at work are dirtier than the toilet and I certainly don't get to wash my hands fifty times a day at work and it hasn't killed me yet soooo... I don't think anything of it when we're eating and the dogs are sitting next to us and I pet them. I even let Shadow eat off my fork because she's so picky she barely touches the food to get it off let alone touch the fork - Halo I only hand feed because she'd eat the fork too (yes Prin - she's the lab).

[rainbow]

Oh, I forgot about money. I wash my hands after coming home from shopping and therefore handling money as it's supposed to be full of germs.


OMG, I think I'm turning into a Howie Mandel.

[LibbyP]

I'm a mix between rainbow and Dog Dancer. After I had my first baby I washed ALL the time I was a woman. With the hubby's work I carry around hand sanitizer(ws), and if we are out and about with the family, I still carry baby wipes even though my kids don't need them.

[jiorji]

not after i touch my pets. Unless I'm making food. If i'm eating i don't wash my hands after petting my pets , maybe that's a bit gross but if the food is already made, I don't need to touch it. I use a fork you know

I do wash my hands when eating after I play with my guinea pig, because well she's a different kind of animal and she sleeps where she poops lol but my cats are clean.
And i wash my hands after cleaning the litterbox.

[technodoll]

ah, i answered the poll before i read the entire question, LOL! yes i'll wash my hands after petting the beanies if they feel dirty, smelly, sticky, etc. which does happen once in a while. and always wash the hands before handling any food or touching my face, hair, etc... (i break out easily)

[Stacer]

After petting my kitties I pretty much only wash up if I'm going to be handling food, etc... I definitely wash after scooping the litterbox. I think if I was allergic to my furbabies I'd wash more often. But I figure they're always cleaning themselves, so essentially it's like washing my hands everytime I pet them

[Prin]

Funny how only the gross ones fess up... (me included) Who were the two who said yes, after every contact? It's nothing to be ashamed of!

[Frenchy]

I always wash my hands,just because I always touch my face and don't want any pimples (you would think at my age these things wouldn't happen anymore! ) and it disgust me when I go to the bathroom at my workplace and see coworkers / customers who gets out of the stall and walk right out.I always remember never to shake their hands!

[Skryker]

I have eczema, so my hands are really dry and cracked all the time. So, I avoid over-washing, but at the same time, I'm paranoid about infections in the cracks.

I wash after litterbox or poop detail, if I have to clean up fur-balls or *other* pet messes, after I handle any pet's feet, but not just because I've touched them. Otherwise, it's general hygeine routine-before, during and after cooking, before eating, after bathroom-and definitely after shopping. I worked in a grocery store for years. I can't tell you the number of times someone pulled money out of a shoe or their mouth or ( ) their shorts!!!!! and handed it to me. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww! There, I WAS obsessive about hand washing, and even so, by the end of a shift my hands were black. Between the leaky raw meat and the money, it's a wonder cashiers don't get sick a lot more often!

[technodoll]

Funny how only the gross ones fess up... (me included) Who were the two who said yes, after every contact? It's nothing to be ashamed of

one of them was me! cuz i didn't read the question before and just voted, i thought it meant "wash hands after using public bathroom" & stuff like that. I do wash my hands many times per day, just cuz they feel "dirty" after a while and i hate the notion of other people's germs on my body. ICK. like in public transportation, totally gross. i also carry & often use a hand-sanitizer gel, always before eating if no sink n'soap are around. pooo on germs! LOL

[MyBirdIsEvil]

I generally only wash my hands if I'm going to handle food, eat, or my animals are really dirty (but generally if they're dirty I give them a bath).
I also wash my hands after handling my bird, and I used to after handling any of my reptiles (I used to have lots of snakes and lizards), or my rat. I had a male rat who died not long ago and male rats tend to produce oils, and it smells funny.

I even let Shadow eat off my fork because she's so picky she barely touches the food to get it off let alone touch the fork

The 2 kitties I actually raised from kittens and kept for myself I used to let sit at the dinner table and eat off of a fork or a plate. I taught them really good manners so they never put their paws on the table or licked the fork.

The kitties I have now were already fullgrown or several months old when I got them, so they'd probably end up impaling themselves on the fork trying to grab the food, lol.

[jiorji]

One of my kitties licked off some bread crumps off a plate when my mom stayed over and my mom washed that plate off 3 times. hehe
Sometimes they're allowed to "rinse" ice cream dishes before I wash them, but i generally don't have a problem with my kitties touching cutlery or dishes, unless i'm using them that moment.

[Puppyluv]

Sighhh I wash my hands a lot now, but 99% of it is at work. With Lay, I wash before and after prepping her food, if I pet her and she's nasty, though sometimes I just wipe my hands on my pants after I go to the washroom, before eating, and preparing my meals, before bed, and after petting someone elses dog who's fed something like Ol' Roy and therefore reeks like the dickens.
At work, I wash after the washroom, in the washroom, after the washroom in the cafe (so i wash twice, once in private, once in public), after handling money, after couting the safe, before baking (though I wear gloves anyways), before making a drink, but not before every drink, just before a string of drinks, after making frap, mocha or cbb, after emptying whipped cream, after a bus, after sweeping, mopping, cleaning, urnexing, closing a machine, god I could go on. My hands are continuosly under water there, it's a major drain on the moisture.

[TMac]

Originally Posted by Prin

Have you ever met one of these people who think that the second the contact has stopped, the hands need washing?

The people I've met who do that typically dont own pets or haven't been around pets very much.

My husband works at home and one of his colleagues started working with him at our place. It was funny because at first the colleague would pet our dog and then wash his hands immediately - after each and every time he petted him. After awhile, he got used to our dog and now he is like us...washing hands when he needs them to be clean for food prep etc or before he leaves for the day I guess.

Naturally, I have to wash up after picking up the poop in the yard too...!

hee!

[rainbow]

Originally Posted by Puppyluv

before making a drink, but not before every drink, just before a string of drinks

Woohoo, party time.

[Skryker]

Hee, I just remembered my Mom's stories about me sharing food with our dog when I was a baby. I'd shove a handful of whatever I was eating into her mouth, and then feed myself-with the same hand! Can you tell I was the youngest? By that point, my Mom wasn't so paranoid about dirt and germs and such. I can remember sharing ice cream cone and popsicles with the dog, too. With that early exposure, it seems a little late to worry about it now.

Both my grandmothers had hairy conniptions over the pets licking our plates, though. My Mom's mother always trotted out the dreaded "You'll get hydrophobia!"-a mysterious condition with vague but fearful symptoms that could be caused by any number of things she was afraid of or didn't want us to do....we finally asked her exactly what hydrophobia was, and she had to laugh and say she didn't know! It was a term she heard and thought it would scare children!

I know now that it's an old term for rabies, so when she was a kid, she was probably told that being licked by strange dogs would cause hydrophobia.

[Prin]

lol watch out for those rabid furbabies!

[joeysmama]

If I washed my hands every time I played with Cooper, or pet him, or carried him up or down steps (yes he's very spoiled) my hands would dry out and flake off.

And I can be pretty OCD about certain things. But you can't "skeeve" your own pet. I do wash my hands if I'm going to be handling food but that's just because it's the hygienic thing to do, pets or no pets. Of course after I use the bathroom, or cleaned spills off the floor, or that sort of thing. Or if I've just walked him I'll wash my hands even if I didn't have to pick up any poopies. His leash gets dragged around the ground and I'm sure he's piddled on it and dragged it through who knows what, bird poopies, whatever germs are left on the sidewalk from peoples shoes, spit, whatever. So yeah I'll wash my hands after a walk because that's just outside germies.

[Writing4Fun]

Wouldn't hydrophobia mean "fear of water"? Phobia = fear, hydro = water??

I find it amusing how some people get grossed out when I let a dog lick my or my kids' faces. Especially after reading the study that bacteria in a dog's mouth may actually be helpful in replacing some lost beneficial bacteria in young children who have been given too many antibiotics. Oh, and also after seeing that episode of Myth Busters where they tested the bacteria in one of the hosts' mouths vs that in a dog's mouth ... and the dog's mouth came out cleaner.

[joeysmama]

and it disgust me when I go to the bathroom at my workplace and see coworkers / customers who gets out of the stall and walk right out.

This really grossed my daughter out when she went to college last year and had to use the communal bathroom for their side of the hall. She would be standing at the sink, washing her hands or doing her hair or whatever and soemone would come out of a stall and walk right out without even pausing near the sink. She said she felt like saying "I CAN SEE YOU LEAVING WITHOUT WASHING YOUR HANDS !!"

I'd rather touch my doggies fur than a door handle after someone like that left the room.

[rainbow]

Originally Posted by joeysmama

I'd rather touch my doggies fur than a door handle after someone like that left the room.

Exactly. Disgusting isn't it?

[Prin]

In a microbiology lab last winter, we had to contaminate our samples with something, so I swabbed the bathroom door knob... I actually ended up with some photosynthesizing swamp bacteria.

[Skryker]

Ewwww! I did a science project in high school (about a billion years ago ) where we took swabs of things and then cultured them. My partner and I did a toilet handle, the bathroom door handle, the payphone and by the cash register in the cafeteria. We thought for sure the payphone would be ickiest, but it was the bathroom door that was worst-so bad it actually overgrew it's side of the petri-dish and took over the toilet handle . Neither the payphone or caf grew anything, and who knows about the toilet.

Sooooo my friend never touches a toilet handle in a public bathroom with her hands. She uses her feet. And I have used a piece of paper towel, or in a real pinch, my shirt-tale to open the door in a public bathroom for years, after scrubbing the heck out of my hands. Ah, high school! Source of so many emotional traumas.

In residence, I never saw one of my floormates walk out without washing their hands, but quite a few of visitors did. At least those washrooms were cleaned daily.

[Skryker]

Originally Posted by Prin

In a microbiology lab last winter, we had to contaminate our samples with something, so I swabbed the bathroom door knob... I actually ended up with some photosynthesizing swamp bacteria.

Holy heck! How did that get there? And what does it look like? The stuff I got from the door was white and fuzzy, I think (so probably not bacteria at all).