My dog is NOT coming into my bed. He snores and he hogs the duvet...

Hannah, London,

I have been living for 60 years withs dogs sleeping on my bed, for most of the time 2, but now it's 4. I have not seen a doctor in the last 40 years, and I think it's quite the contrary, it's when you live in a hygienic environment that your body does not know anymore how to react and you catch all the bugs passing by.

JP Massias, Casablanca, Morocco

i don't get this. If this bloke is the Chief Vet not the Chief Medical Officer shouldn't he be warning pets about the risks of catching things from sleeping too near humans?

Dido Skelton, London,

What Rubbish, I have shared my bed with my Rottie Tessa for 8 years and we are both very happy beings. My friend was so scared of dogs that when she bought her new baby with a cold to our house she would not let her near my dog but Tess being the huggable lug she is wanted to give the baby a kiss and did manage to do this, then she caught the babies cold. So who should we be more scared of catching illness from the dog or the baby

Paul McRae, Paphos, Cyprus

Anyone with a basic common sense of what's hygienic
should realize this! Another study has also revealed sleeping
in beds with humans is not healthy for the pet.

Kim Page, London,

As an academic veterinary surgeon working in infectious disease research, all i can say is...Yet more tosh from another chief veterinary officer. Yes these are the civil servants so far removed from clinical veterinary medicine, reared in the beaurocratic mess that is the department of agriculture. The people who gave us the answer to foot and mouth by burning thousands of healthy cattle, sheep and pigs, the totally failed blue tongue control programme and more. How long will this one last, not long.

The liverpool MRSA study is misquoted, the other diseases are not carried by domestic pets.
Fair enough keep animals out of the kitchen and bedroom if you so wish. I certainly dont want my dog there. Is there a significant risk of disease, i'm afraid not.

Tam , Glasgow, Scotland

Dogs are pack animals.

In packs the members sleep together.

When you have a dog you are its pack.

If you love your dog let it sleep with you.

Afraid of catching diseases?

Solution:

Keep your dog clean and health, and don't let it mix with the low-lifes of the dog and human world.

Still afraid of catching diseases?

Don't have a dog!

Paul S., Bristol, UK

The original report states "...dogs are not thought to be a major cause of zoonotic infections in comparison with food..." Of course DEFRA is responsible at least in part for food safety - is someone trying to shift the blame here?

Andrew, York, UK

Suspicious timing - presumably this is an attempt to drum up support for DEFRA's rearguard action to preserve diffeent EU animal travel rules for the UK?

David, Harpenden, Uk

This is a health scare too far!
Dogs are pack animals - if you want a healthy emotionally secure dog then let him (or her) snuggle up with you - that's what they do in the pack.
My Border Collie has a large bean bag by my bed, and if she wants to snuggle up under the duvet with me, then she does. And very nice and cosy we are too.
If you keep your dog clean and healthy and don't let him (or her) mix with the low-life of the dog and human world, you should be fine.
In any case, no life is risk-free.
Leave us to enjoy our dogs, for Heaven's sake!

Paul S., Bristol, UK

Oh, the British are such overreacting nambie-pambie fusspots.
And the rules governing entry of domestic animals into the country are just completely over the top. Over here on the European mainland, you don't even have to show your dog's papers when crossing borders, whereas the UK immigration service makes it practically impossible to bring in a dog.
What's going to be the next health scare (as if there aren't enough already)?

Stuart, Motril, Spain

Dog owners are so possessed with their pets many of them consider their dogs to be a member of the human race. Perhaps if these people knew more about the habits of dogs, such as eating the dried faeces of other dogs and dogs kept in pairs licking each others genitals they might not be so keen to have them licking their faces and hands. Horror of horrors, my dog doesn't do that .! Maybe not, but they are all quite partial to other dogs backsides.

Phil de buquet, Newport, England

I woke up on Sunday morning with a hangover and three skanky girls in my bed.....I'd have felt much safer with just my old terrier.

James, Monteria, Colombia

And cats as well as they have get bird flu eat a lot more wild food and sleep in more beds!
Really the main point is wash you hands and keep your pets wormed.
Where they sleep is a very small problem

Gary, Cambridge, UK

I trained my dog to sleep in her own bed.When my girlfriend moved in i was most concerned to discover that six months on the dog slips into bed ,waiting until i am fast asleep.My patient training of the dog has been wrecked on the rocks of their complicity.My girlfriend simply states,the dog is cuddlier than me.J.D.Edburton

John Donno, edburton, west sussex

Dr Landeg needs to look at the bigger picture - since time imemorial animals have always played a big part in human lives and certainly in my family for over 40 years - the ever increasing problem of healthcare infections DID NOT start with animals it started because of a total lack of transparency and information given by those in the know ' the medical experts' - lack of hygiene protocols - over use of antibiotics - misinformation and lack of information to patients and their families when the patient was unfortunate enough to contract a healthcare infection due to the lack of protocols by those treating them - yes 30% of the population carry harmlessly Staph aureus of which 3% is MRSA - and if screening proper screening was brought in for everyone connected to healthcare settings and a proper regime of decolonisation was adhered to then the problems might begin to decrease BUT to now blame it on FIDO is barking beyond the pale

Bev Hurst, Wigan, Lancashire

I love my dog more than I have loved any human, we are inseperable, yes she sleeps in my bed, and I snuggle up with her, the feeling of her against my skin is divine. We have sloppy wet french kisses, better than any human I have been with. I am a true zoophile. There are millions like me. I have never caught anything from my dog. If I did,. it wouldn't stop us carrying on just as we are. People who are grossed out by intimate relations with non-human animals are probably the people who eat processed plastic food, have their house full of air fresheners and cleaning chemicals and are probably ill all the time.

Billy, Crawley, Sussex, UK

If you keep yr dog clean and healthy there is no problem, mine is, and he has his own two pillows as well !

R WHEELER, Vallarta, Mexico

I have to agree with most of the comments here in regard to catching a disease from fellow humans versus my dogs.Yea if your stupid enough to bring a stray into your home,untreated then you probably deserve to get sick.If your pets are properly immunized and treated for ticks and fleas then you are more likely to get sick from fellow humans.

My dogs,separate from being pets,are my security alert system.Any miserable primate trying to break into my house will have to evade the keen hearing and sense of smell of my canine sentries.If they are left outside or blocked in some other room then they can't be of much service to my family.

I'll take my chances with disease,which after a lifetime of living with them I have never had,versus relegating them to yard scenery.I'm sure the good doctor's intentions are well intended but of all the dangers in this world to really be afraid of, this isn't even in the top 100.

No they aren't human but they are more capable of loving than many humans...

Ian, Austin TX, USA

These things need to be kept in some kind of perspective - you are more likely to contract MRSA by shaking hands with your vet!

Dr Alan Marsh, Ely,

My dog used to sleep in his basket on the floor. Then the central heating boiler expired suddenly in mid-winter, British Gas came and disconnected it, and I could not get a CORGI fitter to install the new condensing boiler. Four months on, the central heating is still not repaired, and I can't afford to run an electric heater just to keep my dog warm at night, so he has had to join me on the bed. I get a bit fed up with it sometimes but I am a responsible owner, and it was too cold for him at night in his basket on the floor. As the weather warms up, I hope to tempt him back to his basket and, if I am lucky, the central heating will be working again by next winter.

Rachel M, London, UK

All this reminds me of that classic country life cartoon.

I always thought the more germs you were exposed to the greater your immunity. I grew up surrounded by animals which I kissed and cuddled - dogs, cats, chickens, guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, deer and piglets and I have no allergies.

Eve, London, UK

Another health scare! Soon it will be out plants!!!!!!!!

Naya, Madrid, Spain

Strangely, German TV came up with the opposite results from a major study lately: children who live with pets or in close contact with animals have a much more resistant immune system than those living in 'hygienic' surroundings. That just confirms what we've known all along, doesn't it - after all, we're just one species in a world of many.

Personally, I don't go with having our dog in my bed or on the sofa, while the cats may go anywhere (muddy paws included :-) ); the reason is size and whole-body dirt, not parasites and microbes - you hardly see any dog around here these days who doesn't wear a tick/flea protection collar come springtime.
But if you ban your pets from the bedrooms and kitchen (the kitchen being of central interest and the family centre), that means reducing them to deco objects in your living room in most households, doesn't it?

Sibylle, Essen, Germany

This is just another piece of health-related panic-mongering, and with precious little evidence behind it, if any. Where are all the people who have become ill as a result of letting a dog sleep in their bedroom? And where are all those who are ill following the chicken and wild birds panics of last year in the UK? Remember "It's not if, it's when"?

There is one of these scares just about every day now. Last week it was vitamins and over-eating (fancy name: bulimia). Today it's dogs. What will it be tomorrow? Have you nothing better to put in your columns?

Andrew May, De Panne, Belgium

People who handle food after a dog's licked their hands - urgh. Especially after it's been cleaning it's 'brown box'.

John, London,

Never mind the disease, the thought of having a dog sleep on my nice, clean bed makes me want to retch. People who let animals sleep on their bed are gross; if animals are allowed on the bed, I daresay they are allowed on all the other furniture as well. Their houses must reek!

Coco, London,

What an instant reaction this article provoked. I have a dog which is a much loved member of the family but at the end of the day he is an animal not a human being.
Why do some people insist on treating them as humans.

Paul, Brighton,

I once caught "sarcoptic mange" from a Golden Retriever I rescued from the street. My pain was absolutely excruciating, sort of like repeated violent electrical shocks. The dog hardly seemed to notice his mites.

Very unfortunately, the physician who treated me would not believe I had dog mange. He believed it was human scabies but that I was too ashamed to admit to my filthy habits.

Dog mange rapidly dies out on a human when the infected dog is treated because dog mange mites cannot propagate on humans. However, I was treated for scabies, which required twice the application of disgusting liquid pesticides all over my body where they had to remain for 12 hours each time.

Subsequently, a more experienced physician explained to me that it there are no burrows on the webs of the fingers, the penis (on males), or the areolae (on females) , it ain't scabies.

David Null, Emeritus Professor, California State Polytechnic U, USA

LOL, I sleep in the same bed as my 14 stone grate dane, you try telling him he has to go sleep on his couch down stairs alone.

It's all well and good saying things like this put at the end of the day, I more likley to catch something in work, working in IT i touch the keyboards and mice that have been touched by 600 other people god knows what i am picking up of them, but i am more likley to catch something of the mouse (computer) than i am off my dog.

Mr W Jones, Liverpool, England.

So let me get this correct. We can sit on a plane in a cocoon having recycled air with 200+ passengers who have traveled all over the world and have goodness knows what infectious diseases but we can't cuddle up to our dog who has been in the back garden. Give us a break. People carry MRSA ,lots of them. There is far more risk of getting ill from people than from dogs. For a start they are the same species, they travel more widely and they congregate in huge groups (the tube in London for instance) Dogs rarely see new dogs and don't go far . Yes dogs are a risk but people are a far greater risk. Get it into perspective please.

bob taylor, castelnau, France

I'd love to take the offered advice, but then I'd have to go and buy a hot water bottle or look at better heating arrangements for my bedroom, which would only contribute to my impact on the environment. Daschunds are a far better alternative, particularly because when it gets too warm under the quilt down near my feet they move somewhere else, often moving back in when the morning chill arrives. They are also very handy in the kitchen. I know with absolute certainty that any piece of food dropped on the floor will rapidly be hoovered into a low-slung tum with only the occassional point of a finger required to direct the glutton to any missed bits. Overall, the utility is greater than the risk, and the general happiness they lend to any room they're in does me a lot of good.

Nick, Perth, Western Australia

'Dr Landeg recognised that there were positive health benefits from owning a dog: people who walk dogs tend to be fitter and have lower blood pressure and people with dogs recover faster at home after an operation'

Sooo, they recover faster at home after an operation, despite the risks of MRSA, campylobacter and salmonella? That begs the question, about the evidence that these benefits are outweighed by the risks he is rambling about.

He doesn't seem to be aware, or doesn't that a significant proportion of the human population carry MRSA (and other potentially pathogenic micro-organisms), so perhaps it won't be too long before the CMO is advising people to desist from osculation, nose rubbing, in fact any personal contact at all.

I think the time has come for each of us to be provided, from birth, with our own personal bubbles to reduce these risks as far as possible. This will certainly solve the problem - in a generation in fact!

Bill Q, Derby,

I knew this must be from defra! The scare-mongering is beyond belief and we are become a sad society.
My labrador sleeps in bed wiith me, another in the bedrom, my husband with his jack russells (for over 40 years) - my children/grandchildren grew up with dogs and they have never been ill (as for myself I have never had a cold, flu, headache or tummy ache all my life and I am 68! My labrador is everything to me. Honestly, is there anything we cano do these days!
It is such a shame that the religion of Islam does not permit children to touch dogs. They don't know what fun they are missing and animals should not be pronounced as unclean.

susan Hill-Brookes, nr Corby, England

Being too clinical and paranoic about disease is the surest way to get infected. The thousands who bathe in the putid festering waters of the Ganges do not seem to have come to any harm. In fact their immune system is fortified. My close childhood companions were dogs. My present Shetland pup sleeps in any room he wants to.

SanYing, Montreal, Canada QC

Agreed people are more important than humans but humans pass on unacceptance diseases which no animals have.

richard, Christchurch,

This is just the bedroom and kitchen part. What about people kissing dogs or getting licked by them? Just watch what dogs do with their snouts: licking their own and other dog's arses and genitals, sniffing faeces, and many more such activities I will just spare the reader for now.
Yet it seems perfectly normal to have this animal in ones own and their kids beds and kitchens.
Where I live dog owners are obliged to "pick up after their dogs", as this is euphemistically called.
I'm always stunned and appalled to see how these owners rap their hand in a plastic bag before they deadpanned reach for a nice fresh and warm you know what.

Much terror is originating from dogs and their owners, far over reaching the pleasures or benefits.

robert, vancouver, bc

Bringing a human 'friend' home for a 'snooze' could also put you in danger of receiving unwanted diseases... More than what your canine companion can give you. We need to stop being so precious...

Mon, Brisbane, Australia