Forgetting to wash your pet’s bowl happens even to the best pet owners but DSPCA warns it can be harmful for pets.
Washing your pet’s bowl is part of the daily routine all owners have but if you’re particularly busy during the day, or if you’re living with other people, it might be easy to forget to wash it or to assume someone else has done it. However, sometimes it can lead to the formation of harmful pink slime in their water dish which can also sometimes be seen on shower curtains and other parts of the bathroom.
DSPCA spokeswoman Gillian Bird told Dublin Live that while being lazy and just pouring water in their pet’s water dish is something every pet owner has been guilty of, it should not become a habit. And if you find a mysterious pink substance in your pet’s bowl, it’s probably a combination of airborne bacteria (called Serratia marcescens), mould, and yeast spores that thrive in damp environments. While washing pet dishes thoroughly every morning is the most obvious and effective way of preventing the attack of the pink slime, here are some other ways to avoid it.
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Don’t place your pet’s dishes near the heater
Fortunately , the 'pink slime', as some call it, is not that common in Ireland. It would normally be something that builds up over time if pet's bowls aren't washed regularly. However, if there is something there that grew overnight, like "a bit of a freak thing", a very warm environment could be a factor. Gillian said: "It could have been a whole combination of different things. [Pet bowls] shouldn't be close to a radiator anyway. Especially if you're wet feeding, you could end up with the food going stale or going off quicker."
Don’t fill the bowl with hot tap water
Ms Bird says: “The pink water may appear more from you running it from hot tap or from water that's coming from a tank in the attic because that water is sitting there longer than the fresh tap water...it could even a situation where you haven't ran the tap for long enough to get the fresh water through.
Just because there’s still water in the bowl, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change it
If you've got a large pet and a small water bowl, then you may be filling up that water bowl two or three times a day. But if you have a very large water bowl and a pet that doesn't drink much, you might not get to that bowl for three or four days. "It's worth just saying to people, look, you need to get into the habit of washing your pet's water dish and changing the water every day," the DSPCA spokeswoman said, adding that owners need to wash their pet's water dish if they see any food in it and they shouldn't leave it until later.
While dogs are more likely to drink a water bowl in a day, a cat may take a couple of days to drink the water, so owners shouldn't wait until there's no more water left to clean the dish. This is also important when it comes to other pets such as hamsters or rabbits or guinea pigs as a lot of owners would just fill up their water bottles and they tend to go green with algae.
Wash your pet's bowl correctly
Pet bowls should be washed in warm, soapy water, Gillian says. They should be given a good scrub around because there can be scum on them. Then they should be rinsed in more water. "Ideally you might want to dry them as well, and then you refill them," she added.
Thankfully, Gillian says, pink water is unlikely to affect your pet if it's just happened once. She said: "'If it's happening on a regular basis, then obviously there's no harm in bringing your animals for a check-up, but it shouldn't be happening because we should be seeing these things."
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