Is It Okay for My Dog to Lick My Baby?

We all know that it’s cute when a dog licks a baby… but is it safe?

“I don’t want to be the world’s biggest party pooper,” Brian Collins, DVM, a veterinarian with the Cornell Riney Canine Health Center, told Digest for a recent story on cleanliness of dogs’ mouths, “but when I see videos of people letting their dogs lick their kid’s face, it’s kind of cute for a second, but for a number of reasons I’m just not sure it’s the best thing to do. I wouldn’t encourage it.” 

One concern is zoonotic diseases (infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans), which happen to be a hot topic right now. To be clear, household dogs giving their human caregivers zoonotic diseases remains a relatively small risk—and, as Dr. Collins pointed out, dog people have long lived with some risk of contracting one of these diseases from bacteria their dogs might carry, like bartonella or pasteurella. However, conditions have to be fairly specific for this to become a problem— these pathogens would have to take advantage of vulnerabilities like a weakened immune system or an open wound.

Children under 5 are higher-risk as well, because they are still developing their resistance to all the pathogens the world has to offer.

“It probably goes without saying, but there’s higher risk of infection if the animal is a stray, very young and not yet vaccinated, or possibly if the animal is showing signs of being sick themselves,” says Dr. Yuliana Noah, a general pediatrician with Tribeca Pediatrics in New York. 

Dr. Noah adds that there’s no specific age at which kisses suddenly become zero risk, but “avoiding kisses for babies under the age of 1 is recommended, as the chance of acquiring a serious infection decreases as the child gets older.” 

All interactions between children and dogs should be supervised, Dr. Noah says—for all of the above reasons, and also because of the risk of dog bites. “Kids have to be taught or learn to be gentle during interactions,” she says. (Read more on how to introduce dogs and kids, and how to help children develop an understanding of dog cues, here.)

So, though parents might understand why their dog might want to give a new baby a smooch (they smell so good!), there’s plenty of reason to avoid it until they’re older.