I kissed my dog and got eye gunk in my mouth. Should I be worried?

Hello. While it is very unlikely that your dog will contract any infectious disease by licking the eyes of the blind dog, I would try & discourage this. It might be best to keep the old dog's eyes wiped down with a little warm water, just to be safe. Thanks for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

There are a couple of diseases that a rat can give a person, but it's very unlikely it could be spread this way. Bacterial and parasitic diseases usually require a certain amount be ingested before they cause disease. It would take more than a lick to the outside of the mouth to give a substantial amount. There are some scary diseases like hantavirus that can be spread quite easily though. However, it is relatively rare. The best thing you can do to rule-out disease is by taking the rat to a state laboratory for testing. The government has disease monitoring laboratories that will examine and test the body for diseases of concern in your area. You can call your local vet, or Texas A&M veterinary diagnostic laboratory (https://tvmdl.tamu.edu/) for more information. Otherwise, I would not worry too much. It appears that you have done a good job washing away any potential contaminants and it would be rare for you to have contracted anything. If you happen to feel ill in the next week, then please contact your doctor and mention the rat incident. I hope that helps and all is well.

It is not ideal to allow a dog to lick the inside of you or your kid's mouths but it is not the end of the world. I doubt your son will get ill from this. Just don't let it happen again. Also make sure Max has been properly dewormed so he doesn't transmit anything to your children.

It is highly unlikely that your dog touching a bird will cause any illness. While there is no way to know with certainty, dogs are always outside touching things they shouldn't be, and eating gross stuff like animal poop, carcasses, and puddle water. Their immune systems are built much tougher than ours fortunately, so unless you start seeing any clinical signs of illness I would not spend too much time worrying about this. Hope this helps!

Well it depends what the cat was sick with. I'm going to assume the cat was sick with an upper respiratory infection and there isn't anything I would be particularly worried about here. There aren't many contagious diseases we worry about crossing between dogs and cats. I would recommend watching for general signs of disease (lethargy, poor appetite, nasal discharge, coughing/sneezing, vomiting, and diarrhea) in the next week or two just to be safe, but there isn't anything you need to do at this point and a very low likelihood of anything coming from this encounter.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! You only need to worry about rabies if you are bitten by an animal whose rabies or vaccine status you don’t know. Since Romeo didn’t bite you, I wouldn’t be concerned. Kisses to Romeo!

Thank you for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach with your question about Joey. He will not get sick from getting ahold of this q-tip. The only concern I would have is if he ate it, but even then it will most likely pass without problem. I hope this helps.