What Diseases Can Spread From Dogs to Humans?

Yes, dogs can pass diseases to humans. Doctors call this zoonosis, and dogs can carry more than a dozen infections that occasionally jump to people, from rabies and ringworm to leptospirosis and roundworm.

Here’s the reassuring part. The UK has around 15.5 million pet dogs living in roughly 41% of households, and serious human illness from a pet dog is genuinely rare. Vets at the AVMA and VCA both describe the risk from a healthy, vaccinated pet dog as low. Most of the diseases below need specific conditions to spread: broken skin, contact with urine or faeces, or a young child putting dirty hands in their mouth.

This guide walks through the diseases that matter, what causes them, how likely you are to actually catch one, and the simple habits that cut your risk close to zero.

We have sourced all the websites from which we collected data during our research so that we can verify the information provided.

Key takeaways

• Dogs can spread zoonotic diseases through bites, scratches, saliva, urine and faeces.
• Rabies is the deadliest, but the UK has been free of dog-transmitted rabies since 1902. The risk comes from bites abroad.
• Leptospirosis, ringworm, toxocariasis and giardiasis are the infections UK vets and doctors mention most often, though actual dog-to-human giardia transmission is rarer than people assume.
• Children, pregnant women, older adults and anyone with a weakened immune system carry the highest risk.
• Good hygiene, regular vet checkups and up-to-date vaccinations prevent almost all of these infections.
• Any dog bite that breaks the skin needs medical attention on the same day, even if it looks minor.

What is a zoonotic disease?

A zoonotic disease is any infection that can move from an animal to a person. The word comes from the Greek “zoon” (animal) and “nosos” (disease).

Over 100 diseases can theoretically pass from animals to humans, according to the CDC. Dogs account for a small slice of that list. Most require direct contact with an infected animal’s saliva, blood, urine or faeces, and a way into the human body: a cut, a mucous membrane, or the mouth.

Here’s the thing worth remembering as you read the rest of this guide. A dog looking perfectly healthy doesn’t mean it’s germ-free. Several of these infections, including leptospirosis and giardiasis, can be carried and shed by a dog that shows no symptoms at all.

How do dogs spread diseases to humans?

Dogs pass infections to people through a handful of routes.

• Bites and scratches. Rabies, pasteurella and capnocytophaga all enter through broken skin, usually from a bite.
• Saliva contact. A lick on an open wound, the eyes, the nose or the mouth can transmit rabies and a few bacterial infections.
• Urine. Leptospirosis bacteria live in an infected dog’s urine and can survive in soil or water for months.
• Faeces. Roundworm eggs (toxocariasis), Giardia cysts, Salmonella and Campylobacter all spread through contact with infected stool, usually because someone touches contaminated ground or an object and then touches their mouth.
• Direct skin contact. Ringworm and sarcoptic mange spread through touching an infected dog’s fur or skin, or handling contaminated bedding and grooming tools.
• Fleas and ticks. These parasites can carry their own diseases, including tapeworm and, indirectly, Lyme disease.

Understanding the route matters, because it tells you exactly how to break the chain. Wash your hands, pick up poop promptly, and get bite wounds looked at. That covers most of it.

The 10 diseases dogs can pass to humans

1. Rabies

Rabies is a virus that attacks the nervous system, and it’s the one disease on this list that’s almost always fatal once symptoms start.

Globally, dogs cause up to 99% of human rabies cases, and the World Health Organization estimates the virus kills around 59,000 people a year, mostly in Asia and Africa. India carries the heaviest burden.

The UK is a different story. Terrestrial rabies was wiped out here in the early 20th century, and the last domestically acquired human case was recorded in 1902. Between 2000 and 2024, only six rabies cases were reported in the UK, and every single one was linked to an animal bite abroad. A small number of UK bats carry a related virus called European bat lyssavirus, so a bat bite still needs urgent attention, but this doesn’t change the UK’s rabies-free status for dogs.

The risk becomes real the moment you travel. In 2025, a woman from Yorkshire died after being scratched by a stray puppy while on holiday in Morocco. She didn’t think much of the scratch at the time. Weeks later she lost the ability to walk, talk, and swallow. By the time symptoms appear, rabies is nearly impossible to treat.

Symptoms usually take 3 to 12 weeks to appear, though this can range from a few days to several months. Early signs include anxiety, headache and fever, followed by muscle spasms, difficulty swallowing, and eventually paralysis and coma.

What actually protects you is post-exposure treatment, and it works extremely well if you get it fast. Wash any bite or scratch with soap and water for several minutes straightaway. If you’re abroad, get medical help immediately rather than waiting until you’re home. If you’re in the UK and were bitten overseas, call NHS 111 or see a GP the same day.

2. Leptospirosis (Weil’s disease)

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection spread through the urine of infected animals, most often rats, but also dogs, cattle and pigs. In humans, the severe form is known as Weil’s disease.

The bacteria enter through a cut, the eyes, nose or mouth, and can survive in soil or standing water for months. Dogs typically pick it up by sniffing or drinking contaminated water, or through contact with infected wildlife urine.

It’s rare in the UK, but not unheard of, and cases tend to rise after flooding or heavy rainfall. About 9 in 10 people who catch it get a mild, flu-like illness: fever, headache, muscle aches, red eyes. Around 1 in 10 develop the more serious Weil’s disease, which can cause jaundice, kidney failure and breathing problems. When the lungs are involved and treatment is delayed, mortality can reach 50-70%.

Symptoms usually start 3 to 30 days after exposure, most commonly 7 to 12 days. Antibiotics like doxycycline work well, especially if started early, and most people recover fully within a few weeks.

Dogs can be vaccinated against leptospirosis, and it’s one of the core vaccines UK vets recommend, with annual boosters. If your dog has been diagnosed with it, wash your hands carefully after any contact and wear gloves when cleaning their bedding, since infected dogs can keep shedding the bacteria in their urine for a while after they recover.

3. Ringworm

Despite the name, ringworm has nothing to do with worms. It’s a fungal skin infection, most often caused by Microsporum canis in dogs, which accounts for around 70% of canine cases.

It spreads through direct contact with an infected dog’s fur or skin, or through contaminated bedding, brushes and furniture. The spores are tough. They can survive in the environment for up to 18 months.

In humans, ringworm shows up as a round, red, scaly, itchy patch, often with a raised border, usually 4 to 14 days after contact. Children, older adults and anyone with a weakened immune system are more likely to catch it and to develop a more widespread infection.

Treatment is straightforward: topical antifungal cream for mild cases, oral antifungal medication for more stubborn ones. If your dog is diagnosed with ringworm, wear gloves and long sleeves when handling them, wash your hands afterwards, and give the whole house a proper clean, including vacuuming and washing bedding on a hot cycle, since it takes weeks of treatment to fully clear.

4. Toxocariasis

Toxocariasis comes from Toxocara canis, the dog roundworm. Puppies are almost universally infected at birth or through their mother’s milk, and an infected dog sheds roundworm eggs in its faeces.

Here’s the important detail: humans don’t catch this from touching a dog. They catch it from accidentally swallowing roundworm eggs that have been sitting in contaminated soil or sand for a few weeks, which is how long the eggs need to become infectious. Parks, gardens and sandpits are the classic exposure points, and young children are at the highest risk because they play in dirt and put their hands in their mouths.

Most infections cause no symptoms at all. When they do, there are two main patterns. Visceral larva migrans mainly affects children under five and can cause fever, cough, wheezing and an enlarged liver as the larvae migrate through internal organs. Ocular larva migrans is rarer and more serious, causing inflammation and sometimes permanent vision loss in one eye.

Prevention is genuinely simple: worm your dog regularly, especially puppies, pick up faeces straightaway before eggs can develop, cover sandpits when not in use, and get kids into the habit of washing their hands after playing outside.

5. Giardiasis

Giardia is a common intestinal parasite in both dogs and people, and it’s the most frequent cause of parasitic diarrhoea in the UK and US. But here’s a limitation worth being upfront about: despite how often giardia gets lumped in with “diseases dogs give you,” the evidence for actual dog-to-human transmission is weak.

Giardia comes in genetically distinct types called assemblages, and most are host-specific. The CDC and veterinary parasitology bodies like the Companion Animal Parasite Council both say human infections are usually picked up from other humans or contaminated water, not from pet dogs, and that a confirmed case of dog-to-human transmission is genuinely hard to find in the research. Chinchillas, oddly enough, pose more of a documented zoonotic risk than dogs do.

That doesn’t mean zero risk, particularly if a young child or someone with a weakened immune system handles an infected dog’s faeces without washing their hands afterwards. Symptoms include watery diarrhoea, cramps, bloating, nausea and weight loss.

If your dog has ongoing loose stools, it’s worth reading through a proper gut-friendly diet guide for sensitive stomachs, since diet plays a big role in recovery once the underlying infection is treated.

6. Salmonellosis

Salmonella bacteria live in the gut of many animals, dogs included, and most infected dogs show no symptoms at all while still shedding the bacteria in their stool for weeks. Direct transmission from pets to their owners is estimated to cause somewhere between 3% and 6% of human salmonellosis cases each year, with the rest coming mostly from food.

Raw meat diets have drawn extra scrutiny here, since raw pet food carries a higher risk of Salmonella contamination than cooked or processed food. If you feed raw, wash your hands and any surfaces thoroughly after handling it.

Symptoms in humans include fever, diarrhoea (sometimes bloody), abdominal cramps and vomiting, usually starting within a day or two of exposure.

7. Campylobacteriosis

Campylobacter is the UK’s leading cause of foodborne illness, responsible for over 600,000 cases a year, and most of those come from undercooked poultry rather than pets. Still, pet ownership modestly raises the risk, and puppies with diarrhoea are a recognised source.

A US outbreak traced to pet store puppies made headlines a few years back and infected people in multiple states, a reminder that a young, stressed puppy in a new environment is more likely to be shedding bacteria than an adult dog.

Symptoms include diarrhoea (sometimes bloody), cramping, fever and nausea, usually appearing 2 to 5 days after exposure and lasting around a week. Wash your hands after cleaning up after a puppy with an upset stomach, and keep an eye on their toilet habits generally, since a dog with ongoing digestive trouble is worth a vet visit regardless of the zoonotic angle.

8. Sarcoptic mange (scabies)

Sarcoptic mange in dogs is caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei var. canis. It’s intensely itchy for the dog and highly contagious between animals.

The mite can jump to humans through close contact, causing red, itchy bumps, usually on the arms or torso where contact happened. The good news is that the dog-specific mite variant can’t complete its life cycle on human skin, so a human infestation is self-limiting and typically clears up on its own within 12 to 14 days, especially once the dog gets proper treatment.

9. MRSA

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a drug-resistant bacterium that around 30% of people carry harmlessly in their nose. Dogs and cats don’t usually carry it, but they can, and transmission goes both ways: documented cases show humans passing MRSA to dogs and dogs passing it back to humans.

Most pet MRSA cases involve colonisation with no symptoms, though it can occasionally cause skin and soft tissue infections. If your dog tests positive, you generally don’t need to rehome them. Good hygiene around any wound, whether on the dog or the person, is what actually matters.

10. Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)

This is caused by the dog tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus. Dogs pick it up by eating raw offal from infected sheep or cattle, then shed tapeworm eggs in their faeces. Humans get infected by accidentally swallowing those eggs, usually from contaminated soil, unwashed hands after contact with a dog’s coat, or unwashed vegetables.

It’s rare in the UK overall. Only the E. granulosus species is established here, and historically it’s been more concentrated in sheep-farming areas of Wales and western Scotland. The eggs can form slow-growing cysts, most often in the liver or lungs, that may take years to cause symptoms or may never cause any at all.

Treatment usually involves surgery or long-term antiparasitic medication. Prevention is mostly about the dog: regular worming, especially for farm and working dogs, and never feeding them raw offal.

Other diseases worth knowing about

• Pasteurellosis. Pasteurella bacteria live normally in a dog’s mouth and can cause a painful abscess or infection after a bite or scratch. This is one of the main reasons doctors take even minor-looking bite wounds seriously.
• Capnocytophaga. A less common bacterium found in dog and cat saliva. Most people who have contact with dogs never get sick from it, but in rare cases it can cause serious illness, including sepsis, particularly in people with weakened immune systems.
• Brucellosis. Mostly associated with unpasteurised dairy products rather than pets, but a specific strain, Brucella canis, can occasionally pass from dogs to humans, usually to breeders or vets who handle reproductive fluids directly.
• Hookworm (cutaneous larva migrans). Dog hookworm larvae live in warm, contaminated soil or sand and can burrow into bare skin, usually on the feet, causing an intensely itchy, winding rash. It’s classically associated with barefoot beach walks abroad, but UK-acquired cases have been documented too, including in gardeners handling compost.
• Lyme disease. Worth clearing up a common misconception here: dogs don’t give humans Lyme disease directly. Both dogs and people catch it from the bite of an infected tick. Around 1.5% of ticks in the UK carry the bacteria, according to the PDSA. What a dog can do is bring ticks into your house or garden after a walk, so it’s worth checking your dog for ticks after time outdoors and removing any promptly with fine-tipped tweezers.

Who’s most at risk?

Everyone can technically catch these infections, but the risk isn’t spread evenly. You’re more vulnerable if you fall into one of these groups:

• Children under 5, who explore the world with their hands and mouths
• Pregnant women, since pregnancy alters immune function
• Adults over 65
• Anyone on chemotherapy, immunosuppressants, or living with HIV or another condition that weakens immunity
• People without a working spleen

If you’re in one of these groups, it doesn’t mean you need to give up your dog. It just means the basic hygiene habits below matter a bit more.

How to prevent diseases from dogs

Most of this comes down to a handful of consistent habits rather than anything complicated.

• Keep vaccinations current. The leptospirosis vaccine in particular protects both your dog and you.
• Worm and flea-treat on schedule. Puppies need worming every 2 to 3 weeks up to 12 weeks old, then regularly through adulthood. A vet-recommended flea and tick treatment [[Amazon UK affiliate link placeholder: veterinary flea and tick treatment]] applied on schedule cuts your risk of tick-borne and flea-borne diseases significantly.
• Wash your hands. After playing with your dog, after cleaning up poop, and always before eating. This one habit prevents more zoonotic infections than anything else on this list.
• Pick up faeces promptly. Toxocara eggs take 2 to 4 weeks to become infectious in soil, so scooping quickly, using sturdy waste bags [[Amazon UK affiliate link placeholder: biodegradable dog waste bags]], genuinely breaks the transmission chain.
• Don’t let your dog drink from puddles, ponds or stagnant water. This is one of the main routes for leptospirosis.
• Book a vet appointment for anything unusual. Persistent diarrhoea, skin lesions, hair loss or lethargy in your dog are all worth investigating, both for their sake and yours.
• Take extra care if you’re pregnant or immunocompromised. Avoid handling dog faeces directly, wear gloves for litter or bedding cleanup, and wash your hands more often than feels necessary.

What to do after a dog bite or scratch

NHS guidance is consistent here, and it’s worth following exactly.

1. Wash the wound under warm running water for several minutes, even if the skin doesn’t look broken.
2. Gently pat it dry and cover with a clean dressing.
3. If it’s bleeding heavily, apply pressure with a clean cloth.
4. Seek medical attention the same day, even for a bite that looks minor. NHS advice recommends this for most dog bites because infection risk is high regardless of how the wound looks at first.
5. Check your tetanus vaccination status with whoever treats you.
6. If the bite happened abroad, or from a stray or unfamiliar animal, mention this immediately, since it affects whether rabies treatment is needed.

When to see a doctor

Go straight to a GP, NHS 111, or A&E for anything on this list:

• Redness, swelling, pus or a bad smell developing around the wound
• Fever, chills, or feeling generally unwell after a bite
• A bite on the hand, foot, face, or near a joint
• Uncertainty about your tetanus status
• A bite from a stray, wild, or unfamiliar animal, especially abroad
• A wound that keeps bleeding or won’t close

Frequently asked questions

Can you get sick from kissing your dog?

It’s possible but genuinely uncommon for a healthy adult. The main risks are Pasteurella and, rarely, Capnocytophaga, both found in dog saliva. If you’re pregnant, elderly, or immunocompromised, it’s sensible to skip mouth contact and stick to a scratch behind the ears instead.

Can indoor dogs spread diseases?

Yes, though the risk is generally lower than for dogs with regular access to soil, wildlife or standing water. Indoor dogs can still carry giardia, roundworm, ringworm and fleas, and they still need the same hygiene habits.

Can dog faeces spread diseases to humans?

Yes. Toxocariasis, salmonella, campylobacter and, occasionally, giardia and hookworm can all spread this way. It’s the single biggest reason to pick up after your dog quickly and wash your hands afterwards.

Can dogs spread diseases through licking?

Some, yes, particularly rabies (through a wound or the eyes, nose or mouth), Pasteurella and Capnocytophaga. For most healthy people, the everyday risk from a lick on intact skin is very low.

Is it safe for babies and pregnant women to live with dogs?

Generally, yes. Vets and doctors agree that pet dogs pose minimal risk with basic hygiene in place. Avoid handling dog waste directly during pregnancy if you can, keep vaccinations and worming current, and wash your hands regularly.

Which dog disease causes the most deaths worldwide?

Rabies, without question. It kills an estimated 59,000 people globally each year. The UK has been free of dog-transmitted rabies since 1902, so this risk is really about travel, not living with a British pet dog.

Are dog-transmitted diseases common?

No. With around 15.5 million dogs living in UK homes and millions of daily interactions between dogs and their owners, confirmed cases of zoonotic transmission are genuinely rare. Vets describe the risk from a healthy, vaccinated pet dog as low, and most of the diseases on this list require a specific, avoidable exposure to actually take hold.

The bottom line

Dogs can pass diseases to humans, and it’s worth knowing what they are and how they spread. But the list looks scarier than the actual risk. Rabies barely exists in UK dogs. Giardia transmission from pets is rarer than the internet suggests. Most of the rest come down to washing your hands, picking up poop, keeping vaccinations current, and getting bite wounds checked out promptly.

None of this is a reason to think twice about dog ownership. It’s a reason to keep doing the basics well.

If you’re also looking at what goes into your dog’s bowl, our guide on whether humans can safely eat dog food covers the flip side of the human-dog health question, and it’s a fun read if nothing else.