I was not charming when I met Amy.

I publicly said sleeping with her dog was a microbiological hazard, that organic food was shit, and that French food was vastly overrated.

She was smitten and asked me out.

Research from Denmark apparently shows that pregnant women who live with a dog or a cat are twice as likely as other women to have intestinal bacteria in their vagina. This may be caused by the bacteria travelling from the animal via the woman’s hands to her vagina.

Or in the case of our former dog, Sadie, directly from snout to crotch, as she did that to everyone; fortunately, not everyone was naked.

”We were surprised to see such a strong correlation. You’re more vulnerable when you’re pregnant, so this is not the best time to have E. coli bacteria in your vagina,” says Jakob Stokholm, MD, PhD, a researcher at COPSAC, the Copenhagen Studies on Asthma in Childhood.