Expert: Walter Hintz - 1/12/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hi:  I am in the 4th grade and my hypothesis is that dog mouths are cleaner.  I looked at the article you wrote.  Is there a lab kit I can buy to use?  Thanks.

ANSWER: Hi Malcolm
There no kits made for studying bacteria.  The stuff for growing germs has to be bought separately and you would have to buy large amounts of it and it is expensive. You would need petri dishes with media in them. You might want to check with your local high school to see if they have this.  I would like to say however that to test this hypothesis you would have to grow bacteria from human mouths as well as a dogs and growing mouth bacteria can be very dangerous fro a 4th grader.  If you still plan to do this you must have adult supervision. Does your teacher approve of this project?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the response.  I will ask my teacher Friday but my mom would help me I think.  I guess I saw it on Ruff Ruffman and thought it looked cool.  

Answer
I have seen this project done many times Malcolm and I will tell you that the mouth of any animal is not clean and you have to decide what we mean by "clean"  A dog's mouth is full of bacteria.  You are more likely to get an infection from a human bite then a dog bite. Any way I will help you if you want to do it