Cleaning dog food / water bowls (and food storage)

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egoldstein

Guest
To start this off, this is a topic I've thought about discussing many times in the past, but it can sometimes be hard to discuss without shaming anyone and that is NOT what I want. My goal is to raise awareness of health and contamination issues and open a discussion about how often to clean food/water bowls and food storage, as it's hard to discuss one and gloss over the other.

I'm curious as to what others do in regard to cleaning food and water bowls and food storage. I don't do free feeding where there are bowls of food waiting around to be eaten patly because in the past I've dealt with resource guarding and have had dogs who will over eat and get fat. Just like for my meals, there are scheeduled times and everyone gets an appropriate portion to maintain a healthy weight. I tend to wash food bowls after each meal and water bowls less frequently, but typically once every few days. One dog in particular uses a slow feeder which takes significantly more effort to clean than the usual stainless steel bowls.

When it comes to food storage...
We feed kibble and when we open a bag it gets dumped into 5 gallon buckets with reclosable lids (gamma lids). When a bucket is empty it gets washed, dried, and placed back with the rest to be refilled when the next bag is opened. This might seem a bit tedious, but I feel it keeps the food fresher and makes it easy measure out the food. It also makes it easy to just grab a bucket or two for an extended trip with no worry of spillage. A nice bonus is that I stack the buckets so the top bucket is nicely positioned to allow scooping without having to stoop over.

Part of what motivated me to post this was reading a paper published in PLOS One earlier this year, Survey evaluation of dog owners’ feeding practices and dog bowls’ hygiene assessment in domestic settings.

An interesting quote from the paper, "In 2010, Weese and co-workers isolated Clostridium difficile in 6 of 84 dog food dishes making it one of the second most contaminated sites of those sampled, ranking higher than surfaces commonly considered to have high bacterial loads such as the toilet."

It follows up right after that with, "More recently, a 2012 study also examining total aerobic counts on household surfaces showed that pet water dishes had the third-highest bacterial counts out of 26 surfaces studied."

It's made me reconsider how often I wash the water bowls and I realize I need to be more consistent about cleaning them more frequently.

One part that surprised me was that only 20% of those surveyed said there were likely to follow cleaning methods long-term; I admit I was surprised by that.

I'm interested in your opinions and input, what do you do? Did you find anything particularly interesting from the paper? Did it make you reconsider how you do things?
 
I wash my love's dishes almost every day. I'm loading up the dishwasher at night with my dishes, it isn't hard to throw his bowls in.

I pick up food once every week or two, I don't have a ton of muscle so it isn't like I can pick up a big ass bag of food. I don't really pack it away from both Max and the ants that want the food.
 
Food bowl, are inox and usually cleaned once they are empty.

Then water... There is inside and outside. Inside, same thing, clean, replenish.

Outside those are two automatic cattle throughs connected to 10 gallon containers. Tipically hose to remove debris, occasionally remove & clean.
Not happy with it, really. But to be honest he seldom uses them, as he ends up drinking on the bath pool muck while standing inside 🙄. (yes, I clean that too, but is mud wad on like half an hour)
Also, in the forests will drink from wild boar wadding pools, so the drinking throughs is the less of my concerns in this aspect.
 
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I wash my dog's food bowl by hand with hot water after every meal, i do the same with the water bowl when i refill it, which is usually twice a day during the colder months and more frequently (3-4 times) during the hotter ones. Every now and then i also use dish soap to clean them but it's not something i do on the reg.

As for food storage, the kibble typically lasts for a month and a half, i leave it in the bag it came in and i store that inside a big plastic container in my kitchen. I also buy a week's worth of meat and just store it in the freezer for cooking.

The paper has made me reconsider using soap after each use at least for the food bowl and washing the glass i use to scoop the kibble after each use, i've done it occasionaly but it's something that always slips my mind.
It also briefly mentions dog toys having the highest bacterial count in the household, are there any guidlines on how often one should wash their dog's toys? Same as the scooping glass, washing them is not something that often crosses my mind.
 
I leave the food in the bag, fold it back, and seal it with a large clip. 5 days for a large bag...
I wash the bowls every two weeks, with plain washing-up liquid, then rinse thoroughly. Everything is stainless steel.
I also wash the water bowls every two weeks, they get limescale.
They get fresh water every morning and I rinse them out before that.
I never washed the toys, they tear them apart anyway and throw them in the trash.

It is completely unnecessary to over-sterilize everything, it is not healthy at all.
 
We wash food and water bowls in the dishwasher. They are all steel and so they are sterilised. The boys also have their own fridge in their room where we store raw food, the (very) rare can of unused dog food and dried food is kept in sealed containers.

Their teeth are brushed every two days and they get showered and brushed whenever we go for a long, grubby walk. They have their own "human" type shower.

They also visit the vet every year for check ups and vaccinations. They are treated like people, same rights, same quality of life.
 
Judeau said:
It also briefly mentions dog toys having the highest bacterial count in the household, are there any guidlines on how often one should wash their dog's toys? Same as the scooping glass, washing them is not something that often crosses my mind.
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I don't think there are and it'd really depend on the material the toys are made from. Out outdoor toys get risnsed fairly often due to high levels of slobber, but they rarely get properly cleaned.
 
Indeed toys look quite awful in that perspective. Chew after chow, rests of food get stuck. Frequent slobber ads humidity, and mouth bacteria for fermentation. Add any soil bacteria to the mix.
And many toys have holes, grooves and other placer where rests get stuck.

Totally looks like something you should kill with fire 🤣
 
Goattobeloved said:
Indeed toys look quite awful in that perspective. Chew after chow, rests of food get stuck. Frequent slobber ads humidity, and mouth bacteria for fermentation. Add any soil bacteria to the mix.
And many toys have holes, grooves and other placer where rests get stuck.

Totally looks like something you should kill with fire 🤣
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Ohhh. And THAT was my 1k milestone post 🤣
Officially adicted. Sort of suspected it, though...
 
I'd clean and sanitize their stuff just as often as I clean and sanitize my own dishes. Interestingly enough toilets are a lot cleaner than kitchen sponges that have been in use for more than a few weeks. That's besides the point though I would hate to risk getting any of my animals food poisoning just because of a dirty bowl.

Oh and congratulations to @Goattobeloved for the milestone post. 🥳
 
MypupandI69 said:
Not that I know of I've just made sure that they get thorowly rinced and dried before using it again. If I have a dish washer I don't even bother because they get sanitized by steam cycle.
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Ahhh ok that means I'm free to do so. I don't want to accidentally somehow rust the dish
 
I'm so used to having to wash out feed buckets and water troughs for the horses weekly I just include the ones for my doggies with them, the horse food buckets get rinsed daily due to feeding wet mash to everyone and it will certainly ferment otherwise.
 
Mare Lover 1975 said:
I'm so used to having to wash out feed buckets and water troughs for the horses weekly I just include the ones for my doggies with them, the horse food buckets get rinsed daily due to feeding wet mash to everyone and it will certainly ferment otherwise.
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That's a whole other thread I'd happily read. The task of keeping tanks clean seems so much harder. I certainly don't do it nearly as often as I know it should be done.
 
egoldstein said:
That's a whole other thread I'd happily read. The task of keeping tanks clean seems so much harder. I certainly don't do it nearly as often as I know it should be done.
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It's not hard to do as I've put drain valves in mine, during the summer months they need cleaning far more often than during the winter, my pony loves washing her mouth in the water trough after she eats so algae blooms can spring up practically overnight due to all the food she leaves behind. And the feed buckets literally will smell like a brewery by evening if I forgot to rinse them in the morning, not pleasant at all and probably wouldn't be a good thing to feed them either.
 
MypupandI69 said:
All metal dog dishes are stainless steel just like regular house hold silverware👍your good to throw them into a vat of hydrochloric acid if you want to go overboard and kill every spec of bacteria🤣
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Heh... :p

Stainless steel bowls here, twice daily* little splash of Hibiscrub lathered and applied with a separate wet scourer (washed before & after, replaced periodically). Leave for a minute then turn the tap on full to "hose down" the bowl thoroughly and refill.
Not forgetting the underside, especially if it regularly gets overturned/licked (not so much of an issue here, on carpet). Biofilm loves dampness.

Stainless steel food bowl for the non-high value items doesn't get left around here after meals, so that gets washed per above at the same time, dried thoroughly with a paper towel and put away until the next meal.
Therefore, totally "fresh" water after each meal and the water bowl can be quickly "hosed down" and refilled (once again) immediately after the post-meal drink.

Interestingly, zero dental issues here or even plaque to any significant degree. Good, fresh drinking fresh water probably helps with that whereas a little slime goes a long way if continually reapplying the bacteria therein to a dog's mouth throughout the day.


* Temperate climate here. I definitely recall adding an extra wash/refill (or two) when over in hot, humid FL.
 
irbyz said:
Interestingly, zero dental issues here or even plaque to any significant degree. Good, fresh drinking fresh water probably helps with that whereas a little slime goes a long way if continually reapplying the bacteria therein to a dog's mouth throughout the day.
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I find some dogs are more prone to plaque buildup than others. All eating the same food, some will need periodic cleaning with a dental scaler, others never seem to need it. I wasn't paying attention back when I had multiple pups from the same litter so can't say if it was consisstent among littermates or not; perhaps someone else can.
 
Mare Lover 1975 said:
And the feed buckets literally will smell like a brewery by evening if I forgot to rinse them in the morning, not pleasant at all and probably wouldn't be a good thing to feed them either
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Oh, I stopped using a certain type of lamb feed for goats because of that.

I have a... Hopper feeder is the name? with a metal mesh on the bottom so dust falls to the ground (goats hate that). Also, their water comes by suckling nipples, so water is always clean. (they will just refuse to drink if water is not perfectly clean)

But that particular feed type (grain, leaves and what not) has so many dust, it accumulates, and a little water spillage on it will make everything reek of fermentation. Leave it a couple of days in summer and it will have a myriad of small fly flukes 🤮
 
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