Fact Check: ‘Human Probiotics Work Fine for Dogs’ — The Strain-Specificity Problem
Key Takeaways The claim that “human probiotics work fine for dogs” is partially true with major caveats — most human strains have not been validated in canine hosts. Host specificity is a real microbiological phenomenon: bacterial strains isolated from dogs often behave differently in dogs than strains isolated from humans. Some general mechanisms (competitive exclusion,…