Dogs in the Examining Room

"Maggie" Credit: Rod Moser

If you have been reading my Blog, you know how much I love dogs. I have two Shelties now and would love to have one more. With this brief preface, I would like to share an incident in my office last night.

By choice, I work 12-13 hour shifts, three days per week. I know that people do not just get sick from 8 to 5, and that working people and those in school during the day need options. I, on the other hand, like to have some days off during the week; hence, this is my schedule.

I walked into the examining room to see a 15 year old girl with ear pain. She was accompanied by an entourage of three siblings (all girls), a mother, and a puppy. The puppy was actively peeing on my floor; on two of my examining gowns placed on the floor to be exact. As I stood their in awe as the yellow stain leeched onto the floor below, the mother proudly announced that this puppy paper-trained himself. She picked up the dog urine-soaked gowns and attempted to put them on the top of the waste receptacle under the sink. That is, before I stopped her.

"You allowed your dog to pee on my floor, on my examination gowns?" She paused with that comment.

"Babies crawl on that floor. People often walk in their bare feet on that floor. While I admit that examining room floors are not the cleanest places for those activities, dog urine is really not wanted. I would respectfully ask you NEVER to do that again. I will have my nurse provide you with some supplies so you can properly clean up that mess."

I am usually easy-going and tolerate a great deal of (human) body fluids in those rooms. It is not unusual to see a geyser of urine stream from a little boy arching through the air toward a startled (new) parent. Those things are expected to happen. I find those amusing and we all help clean it up…properly, followed by some sanitation procedures that go on after the patient vacates the room. Had I not walked in on an actively peeing dog (!), I am sure that nothing would have been said. Microbiologically, I suspect dog urine (like most human urine) is pathogen-free, but it still has a significant "yuck" quality.

We have patients with service dogs all of the time. These canine companions are well-trained, usually better than the toddlers I see. The law permits service dogs in virtually any area, as it should be. This puppy was cute (all puppies are cute), but this was not a service dog. The dog made it past our front desk receptionist contained in a pet carrier. If it were 105 degrees outside, I would not have had an issue (other than the fact that a responsible dog owner should not even take a dog out in the car under those conditions), but it was raining and it was cool, and there were plenty of kids that could have watched that dog…in the carrier…in an isolated corner of the waiting room away from children that may have a dog dander allergy. If our office starts allowing or not actively prohibiting animals in the exam rooms, it will definitely get out of hand, I can assure you.

I stopped referring patients to a local podiatrist when more than one person told me that he had a free-range cat in the waiting room. Most patients (apparently) did not mind - perhaps cat-lovers and owners themselves, but I had a problem. Cats can carry all types of germs on their feet as they walk around in their litter boxes. Some of the worst infections I have treated involved cats in some way. Some cats also carry ringworm – a fungus that is actively treated by podiatrists when it is on the feet and between the toes. I guess this would be convenient.

"Lexi" Credit: Rod Moser

My first Sheltie was highly-socialized, even before she joined our family. The breeder would take the adult dogs (and puppies) to nursing homes to be petted and handled. It was good for the residents and definitely good for the dogs. I suspect that the breeder has a pee-policy. Nursing home residents are mostly adults and the facilities are a bit different than a medical waiting room used by persnickety new parents.

Puppies also poop. Dog poop, unlike urine, is teaming with microorganisms and even worms. Granted, one of my kids (sorry, Alex) happily ate a dog turd when he was little. He did not get sick and is now an engineer. I step on a lot of dog poop in my yard, but I am not going to start stepping on it at work.

If you really love your dogs, please don't force them into places they do not belong. I don't want to see them sitting in shopping carts when I am at the grocery store, or poking their heads out of bags/purses at the mall. I definitely do not want to see them panting in hot cars with a window cracked one-half an inch. I don't want to see big dogs in the back of a pick-up truck barking at startled people walking by, or even tied to the back of a pick-up truck flying down the freeway. I don't like my neighbor's unrestrained dogs chasing my car; and I don't want other dogs using my self-manicured lawn as public toilet. My little dogs are okay but not the neighbor's behemoth and his impressive mega-piles. And, I don' really want dogs in my waiting room peeing on the floor. I don't really want "extra", uncontrollable kids in the examination room, but I don't want parents leaving kids in the car with the windows cracked either.

"Herman" Credit: Rod Moser

I have told my wife that if I were dying in a hospital bed, I would want my dog, Herman, lying next to me. Unfortunately, that role was tragically reversed. Two years ago, I had to lie next to Herman when he was dying. Friends do that for each other.

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