A Real Mouthful

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project was to test and see if a dog's mouth is cleaner then a human's. My hypothesis for this project was that a dog's mouth would have more bacteria then that of a humans. I thought this because of some background research I found, remember a dog's tongue is both its wash cloth and toilet paper. I would think that this fact alone would increase the number of bacteria colonies found in the dog's mouth. Methods/Materials I had three different test groups, small, medium, and large for both dogs and humans. Each of the human groups consisted of three people and two people with braces. There was a total of nine dogs tested, three in each group. A cotton swab was used to gather bacterial samples from each of the twenty-four subjects. The bacteria was then transferred to a labeled petri dish and placed in an incubator. Over the next four days I counted and compared the colony growth averages between the dogs and the humans. Results The results showed the average amount of bacterial colonies for the dogs came out to be 1,807. The humans, on the other hand had an average of about 165 bacteria colonies. With these results that I have collected it shows that my hypothesis was correct. The dogs had more bacteria then that of the humans. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that the dogs that I tested had more bacteria then the humans. This project did support my hypothesis, for I thought that the dogs would have more bacteria then the humans. The dogs had an average of 1,642 more colonies then that of the humans. Even the humans with braces had fewer colonies then the dogs and they grew at a much slower rate. The information that I have collected might also show that if you have been bitten by a dog, you should have a doctor cheek it out to make sure that the bacteria in a dog's mouth is not fatal to you. So next time my dog Taz, wants to lick me on the face or share my ice cream, I will be thinking twice.

Competition history

• CSEF 2006 Microbiology · Entry J1326

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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