It’s never the owner’s knickers, part 2

In my previous blog post I looked at the known veterinary phenomenon that dogs often eat underwear. This may then require surgery – which is clearly a stressful situation for owners and the vet team. And we all know that if surgery has been required, the likelihood of the underwear belonging to the owners is pretty small.

I recently revealed my planned memoir title and the reason behind it to a friend. After the usual responses about dogs eating pants, my friend suggested a very interesting idea on quite why dogs choose knickers from those outside of their immediate family.

Personally, I had always presumed popular dog walk areas are littered with used underwear that dogs find and eat (I’m not sure what this says about me), but I finally have a better and, possibly, more scientifically sound proposal – courtesy of someone else.

Gut-alikes?

We know about gut microbiomes and their effect on health, but some recent research is starting to explore the link between pets and their humans’ gut microbiomes.

We know the old saying that owners often start to look like their pet, but could your gut begin to act like your pet’s gut?

There are numerous studies around pets, humans and health. In an article titled “Household Pet Ownership and the Microbial Diversity of the Human Gut Microbiota” there is the start of some interesting research that links pet ownership with changes in gut microbiomes of the adults in the household:

“These results suggest that pet ownership is associated with differences in the human gut microbiota. Further research is needed to better characterize the effect of pet ownership on the human gut microbiome.”

So, could owning a pet change gut microbiome for both pet and owner?

Self-regulating

What has this to do with “It’s never the owner’s knickers”? Well, as many of you know, variety in your diet is key to healthy gut microbiome. In fact, it is currently being proposed that eating 30 different types of fruit, veg, nuts, seeds and spices a week makes for a more diverse gut microbiome – which is beneficial for gut health in general.

So, could there be a theory (and then some evidence) that, in a quest for variety, dogs are searching for variety in their gut microbiome? As our pets have their diets controlled by us, their autonomy to get a varied diet is limited. Could the ingestion of strangers’ pants be part of our canine companions’ plans to vary their gut microbiomes?

More research is needed, as always, but there may be a reason why its never the owner’s knickers!