Is That Slime In My Dog’s Water Bowl????
Have you ever rubbed your fingers inside your dog’s water bowl and felt a slippery substance? If so, their bowl is way overdo for a cleaning.
Before talking about what that slime is and how it affects your dog’s health, let me ask you a quick question: would you drink out of glass that has not been washed for weeks? I hope the answer is no! Well, just like how you deserve to drink out of a clean glass, so does your dog.(I might have been guilty of refilling Tallulah’s bowl without cleaning it out first. But now that I know what the slime is, I will always be attentive to clean out her water bowl. Hopefully you will be too…..
The slime mentioned earlier is called biofilm. It is a thin, gooey film of bacteria that adheres to various surfaces. While biofilm does contain some good bacteria, it also contains bad bacteria that could make your fur baby sick.
Listeria, E. coli, and legionella are all organisms that call biofilm home. If your dog’s water bowl is not cleaned, this bad bacteria will reproduce and their water will become contaminated. Bad biofilms have been linked to urinary tract infections (UTIs), bladder infections, middle-ear infections, and more.
So how do you stop biofilm from forming?
YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR DOG’S BOWLS! This is what I do:throughout the day, every time I refill their bowls, I wipe them down with a paper towel (note: biofilm needs to be physically broken up). Then at the end of the day, I wash their bowls in hot, soapy water.
Top Cleaning Tips:
1) Change water daily
2) Wipe bowls in between cleaning
This will help break up the biofilm.
3) Clean regularly
According to the NSF Organization, “Pet dishes should be washed daily, either in a sanitizing dishwasher or scrubbed by hand with hot soapy water, then rinsed. If handwashing, place the dishes in a 1:50 bleach rinse (one cap of bleach in one gallon of water) and soak for about 10 minutes once per week. Rinse thoroughly and allow to air dry.”
4) Use Stainless Steel Bowls
Okay, so this isn’t technically a cleaning tip. But, it’s recommended to use stainless steel or ceramic bowls versus plastic bowls. Plastic dog bowls are very porous and can get scratched easily. For this reason, it’s much easier for bacteria, algae, and mold to collect and grow.