Why don’t I hear more about canine pink eye?
“Pinkeye” has two definitions: bovine pinkeye is a specific bacterial disease that only affects cattle; otherwise, “pinkeye” is a generic synonym for conjunctivitis.
Dogs can’t get bovine pinkeye, but they can and do get other types of conjunctivitis. It may just be less noticeable in dogs because the white sclera of their eyes isn’t as prominent as humans’.
I think the question is about e coli infections specifically, a common cause of pink eye.
How many times did you fart on your dogs face before turning to the internet for answers?!?
I’ve never had a dog which is probably why I was wondering this
They absolutely can, at least under the right circumstances. I accidentally scratched my dog’s eye least year while playing with him, and as a result he developed a pretty bad case of pink eye about a week later, discharge and all.
It fortunately cleared up pretty quickly with some prescription eye ointment, which _un_fortunately required a fairly pricey urgent care visit to basically say “Yep, it’s pink eye”.
Might be that their immune system reacts and adapts to the conditions they’re in. If they’re constantly exposed it may be better at fighting it off than in humans where exposure is intermittent.
That said I’m not too sure about the epidemiology of pink eye and how it is normally spread. Is fecal to eye a normal pathway or is it some other way? What does the evidence show?
Counterpoint: they can’t lick their eyeballs.
But they shove their faces in butts all the time and they got all that fur to carry klingons
Yeah, but bacteria spreads by DIRECT contact. Unless their eyeball is directly touching butt or something that touched the butt, they’ll be fine. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
The real risk is getting licked in the eyeball, I think. I used to have a dog that would give my face a THOROUGH washing and, since it made him so happy, I tolerated it as long as I could. But it wouldn’t be infrequently that he would lick my eye lid enough to flip it up, yet I never got pink eye from his tongue.
So maybe saliva kills the ecoli? Or it gets neutralized somehow?
Wish I could be more helpful.
/c/dogs
