No Dogs Allowed? Questioning Pre-Surgery Pet Bans
How Anecdotes Turned into Medical Dogma—and Why It Matters
A few years back, a relative of mine signed the consent forms for a shiny new knee. Osteoarthritis had made movement painful, and surgery was the best option. The pre-op checklist was standard: chlorhexidine soap, hospital bag, no food after midnight. But one line in bold italics stopped me cold:
For three days before surgery, no pets are allowed in the bed.
Wait—what?
As a veterinarian-turned-physical therapy professor who dissects shaky evidence on Beyond the Abstract, I was skeptical. Does a dachshund snoring at the foot of the bed really increase surgical-site infection risk? Is there a study titled “French Bulldogs vs. Wound Sepsis” I missed? I dug into the glossy booklet, peer-reviewed literature, and case reports to find out. Spoiler: the evidence is thinner than a Sphynx cat’s fur coat.
This post is for healthcare providers, veterinarians, and orthopedic patients, but its point is broader: it’s about the murky realm where anecdotes morph into medical dogma. Here’s what I found—and why “better safe than sorry” can leave patients sorry, and no safer.
Blame it on the dog (again)
In veterinary school, my parasitology professor warned us: “Pets blamed for infections they didn’t cause.” His example: a grandparent with questionable hygiene develops ringworm (tinea). Her PCP informs her that the itchy rash likely came from the family dog. Their family hauls their bewildered Labrador to the clinic, demanding ketoconazole — even though there’s no evidence the dog is infected.
Zoonoses are real—cats and dogs can pass ringworm, Pasteurella, the occasional flea-borne plague to humans. But the question isn’t can they transmit disease; it’s how likely. If every case of tinea cruris came from Rover, we’d be quizzing Lotrimin buyers about their pets.
Inconsistent Pre-Op Pet Bans
This “pets = pathogens” reflex surfaced in a pre-op booklet banning pets from the bed. I scoured hospital websites and found a common, if inconsistent, message: no pets in bed before surgery. This isn’t about the cultural choice to co-sleep with one’s golden-doodle; it’s about whether pre-surgical exposure measurably raises infection risk.
For example, the Hoag Orthopedic Institute says pets aren’t allowed on the bed at all:
Bronson health says it’s okay to have pets in the bed two days before surgery, but not the day before (because that’s how cross-species microbiome decolonization works, right?).
Trinity Health specifically states not to sleep with pets the night before surgery, since “pet hair can adhere to your skin, increasing the risk for infection.” Perhaps that means Xoloitzcuintle dogs and Sphinx cats are in the “safe before surgery” category.
If a bed-derived clump of Labrador undercoat can survive the detergent scrub, alcohol prep, and iodine paint of a modern OR, then it deserves its own biohazard classification.
How Rare Cases Became Dogma
The pet ban didn’t materialize from nowhere. A 2001 New England Journal of Medicine described a man who developed a Pasteurella multocida infection after cervical-spine surgery. The source? His dogs, who slept in his bed - the report doesn’t provide any further detail of what type of contact they had with his wound. A 2016 case series reported 32 prosthetic-joint infections tied to pets licking or scratching post-op dressings, (not to mention one “horse injury”) growing bugs like Streptococcus canis.
Other case reports describe patients with prosthetic joints becoming infected months or years after the initial surgery - but again, bites and licks are involved. As an example, one case report describes a woman who had a total hip replacement 8 years earlier. She allowed her dogs to lick a laceration on her leg, and subsequently a prosthetic joint infection. The context that she had a previous history of prosthesis infections, including a one in the past two months.
Other similar cases exist, such as a 67 year old female who had a hip replacement a decade earlier, but developed a Pasteurella multocida joint infection two days after getting bit by a cat. In other cases, the causative incident is less obvious - such as the case of a 66 year old woman who recalled getting scratched by her dog nine months before her prosthetic hip became infected with Capnocytophaga canimorsus. It is possible that recall bias or attribution bias influence our interpretation of the causitive incident.
Compare that to the denominator: the U.S. performs over 1 million hip and knee replacements annually, with infection rates of 0.5–2%. Pet-linked cases seemingly are <0.01%, all involving post-surgical wound contact — licks, bites, scratches. Pre-surgical pet exposure? No epidemiologic link.
That’s entirely it — as best as I can tell, pre-surgical dog ban stems from some cases of people getting post-surgical infections from pets directly contaminating an unprotected wound site with saliva and claws.
Post-Op Pet Fears: More of the Same
Post-surgical warnings may seem more justified, but are similarly overreaching.
A number of pamphlets recommend getting pets out of the house altogether. For some, it’s about alleviating caretaking responsibilities when one is recovering. For others, it was blanket trip/fall risk reduction — even if your Great Dane had never gotten underfoot before, it’s apparently still best to get him out of the house now just in case.
But for many guidelines, there was clear emphasis about pet-related wound infection risk. As an example, the Hughston Clinic reminds patients to wash their hands before touching their incision site (perfectly reasonable), but then reminds them again to wash hands after touching pets. Not after using the bathroom, using their phone (perhaps in the bathroom), shaking hands, etc — the real risk is that pesky pet dander?
You start to see the pattern: pets get the blame even when basic hygiene lapses are universal — just like my vet school professor told us 20 years ago.
What Really Prevents Infections
The real risk isn’t your dog gently snoring on the sheet the nights before the operation, or likely afterwards. Nor is it getting Capnocytophaga from the one time that you forgot to lather up after giving your cat a few gentle strokes. It’s when there’s a fresh wound, a damp dressing, and a 60-pound lab who expresses love through licking. It’s not about the presence of pets, but the context of contact.
When you compare these quirky pet restrictions to global guidelines on preventing surgical infections, the contrast is glaring. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both issued comprehensive, evidence-based recommendations to reduce surgical site infections — none of which mention avoiding pets. What do they emphasize? Precise antibiotic timing and blood glucose control. Pets aren’t mentioned.
The Harm of Unfounded Rules
Some may shrug all of this off as, “better to be safe than sorry.” But I’d argue that such ridiculous precautions do more harm than good.
The human-animal bond isn’t just sentimental — it’s therapeutic. Exposure to pets may reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and promote emotional wellbeing, including during recovery from surgery. Dozens of studies have shown small but consistent improvements in mood, pain, and sleep when patients are allowed access to animals.
Are the studies perfect? No. They rely on subjective measures and may suffer from publication bias and other imperfections which may exaggerate the benefits. But they trend in the direction of “pets help,” not “pets harm.”
People have pets because they bring us emotional benefit. So why, without strong evidence, would we recommend that patients isolate from a primary source of comfort — especially at a time when we could use a bit extra?
The pet ban starts to feel like the "you must shower before entering the pool" sign everyone ignores. When one rule is clearly based on nonsense, how are patients supposed to know which other ones matter? It becomes easy to dismiss the real precautions—compression stockings, early mobilization, wound care—as equally arbitrary. Further, it may cause patients unnecessary stress, feeling that they will get an infection just because the dog shares the couch.
This isn’t just about pets. It’s about trust. When we insist on randomized trials for new implants, but pass out lifestyle restrictions with no evidence, we erode the very foundation of evidence-based care.
Takeaway: Question the Evidence
The pre-surgical dog ban medical folklore at its finest. Like the Seinfeld “tractor story” — it sounds vaguely plausible to someone without expertise, and because it’s repeated with confidence, it sticks and people comply. That’s how pet bans before surgery end up in official-seeming pamphlets—not because there’s a strong evidence base, but because someone once heard about a case, extrapolated it, and no one questioned it.
Conflating possibility with probability turned a handful of cautionary tales into a broad prohibition. Until someone publishes an RCT of surgical outcomes in pet co-sleeping (anybody want to collaborate with me?), your dog can keep her spot—just keep the sutures covered and the tongue away. Pretending otherwise risks turning genuinely life-saving precautions into background noise.
Yes, pets CAN seed a surgical infection — but likely only under very specific, preventable circumstances. Letting your fluffy companion’s tongue go to town at your exposed surgical site like its a peanut butter-filled Kong may be a recipe for disaster. But, snuggling up with your pooch with your properly covered wound probably isn’t going to get you an infection.
Disclaimer: This post is not medical advice. If you are undergoing surgery, talk to your healthcare provider about their specific guidelines. But if they mention pets, it’s fair to ask: what evidence is that based on?
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Have you encountered odd medical advice about pets? Share in the comments!
The don't sleep with your pets prior to surgery injunction is not a thing in New England as far as I've heard. I doubt most of my patients would adhere to it anyway.
But what about if the pet licks the sheets before the pre-op patient lies on them, but then jumps out of the bed and doesn't sleep with the patient? Would that be OK?
I do recall reading an article in the NEJM clinicopathological series in a case of a dying person who wanted to see their companion animal, where the discussant said, "This is probably the first time a pet has been mentioned in the history of this series as anything other than a vector of disease."
I enjoyed your: >>If a bed-derived clump of Labrador undercoat can survive the detergent scrub, alcohol prep, and iodine paint of a modern OR, then it deserves its own biohazard classification.