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Licking Each Other In The Mouth.


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It's not a submission thing, it's just affection, completely unrelated to social rank. It just happens that a lot of submissive-behaving dogs are also quite affectionate. Some dogs don't feel comfortable with that much intimacy. Penny will only let dogs she knows and likes do it to her, and that's pretty much restricted to Jill, who she lived with for a while and is an affectionate dog. Jill certainly is not submissive to Penny in general, but doesn't like to get in arguments. Penny will do it to Jill as well, but only if she hasn't seen Jill for a while or she thinks Jill is hurt or upset.

Although it is also an appeasement gesture as puppies do it to remind other dogs that they are small and weak puppies. Kivi will do it to anyone that lets him, including humans! Some dogs are okay with it and some dogs are not, but generally they find it non-threatening and at least let him nuzzle their faces and lick their ears.

Well, very small puppies do it to illicit regurgitation of food. Older puppies do it to say they are young and weak like puppies.

Edited by corvus
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Corvus,when People start attributing human emotions to dogs no wonder they do not see whats going on.Intimacy and affection are human concepts and emotions and not dogs.If dogs were weary of ntimacy then they would have to experience shame as well.

Shame go's hand in hand with fear of imtimacy in Humans. Tony

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If they seen quite happy and content with it, then let it be.

Mouth licking is used to elicit regurgitation of food, although this process of obtaining food is no longer required from our domesticated dogs, the motor pattern still exists within the dog's instinct.

I would dare say your dog is either enjoying the "taste" of the other dog's mouth or it may even be grooming related behaviour. I don't think it is in any way linked with feelings of intimacy.

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I don't mean intimacy in the human sense. I mean intimacy in the purely physical sense. Some dogs don't like other dogs being that physically close to them.

Affection is something that all social animals and many non-social animals display. I don't often pull the zoologist card, but I will in this case. I have seen it. Too many times to count. The REASON for the display of affection is the bit that's important in interpreting animal behaviour. A social bird doesn't allow just anyone to preen them, only those in their social group. Displays of affection are a very big part of bonding, and bonding is a very big part of minimising confrontation and therefore stress in a group.

In summary, dogs are social animals and often use displays of affection to bond with other dogs (and other animals in some cases) in order to minimise conflict. Licking mouths and faces and ears is one of these displays of affection.

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I would like to add my encounters of mouth licking to see what people make of this one!

Our ridgy and kelpie play together quite well, but being a younger and larger dog Zola sometimes gets a bit carried away and Wandy will put her in her place. This usually involves a different bark and some growling. Sometimes Zola will stand up to her, other times theres no challenge and she settles down. THEN after this Wandy will go up to Zola and lick her mouth and all is okay in their doggy world :hug: . It makes me wonder if it is submissive behaviour, why is Wandy telling Zola off in the first place. Since Zola has been desexed she is challenging Wandy less (which is great!) in these situations, so it makes me wonder whether it is a submissive behaviour or not.

Any thoughts??

Rat

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It is in fact a submissive posture....and there is nothing wrong with it. It is wrong to stop or interfere with such a natural behaviour simply because either you don't understand it or you might find it 'gross'. These are dogs..not humans in fuzzy suits. They have well programmed instinctual behaviours that are hard wired into them.

So what if they do it for a while? Sorry but I find that more of an intriguing question than a natural canine behaviour.

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I would like to add my encounters of mouth licking to see what people make of this one!

Uh huh, I have seen this too. Do the dogs start playing again after the licking?

I think there are subtleties to submissive and dominant behaviour, but perhaps it is easier to think of them as just that: behaviour. An animal can behave dominantly in one account with another animal and submissively in another account with the same animal. This does not cause hierarchies to collapse (perhaps because they weren't very rigid in the first place, but that's a whole other thing). It just means in this moment the animal feels tension they want to relieve and in the next moment might be feeling the tension as something very small next to their wish to have something, for example. So in your case, Wandy doesn't like Zola's boisterous behaviour and tells her to stop. It makes Wandy feel frightened, or perhaps just nervous. Perhaps she has told her several times before she makes it abundantly clear. I wouldn't even call that dominant behaviour, more like just one dog telling another to ease up. So when Zola heeds her, she comes back and reaffirms their bond with a bit of licking and nuzzling, aka affection. Bond is all renewed again, conflict is over and tension evaporates. To me it seems that Wandy is using this licking as a means to smooth over conflicts and relieve any tension that may occur between the dogs after she asks for her space to be respected. Is it affection or submission? Well, a bit of both, but the submission is just a display of submissive behaviour used to ease tension, perhaps as appeasement in some sense.

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Yeh, that makes sense Corvus. And they certainly continue with their playing after this occurs. Wandy sometimes has to let Zola know a couple of times shes being too over the top. But Zola is only 2 and not very grown up, whilst Wandy is 6 and has always been a "control freak" :3monkeys:

I would go with the nervous thing, as we have a few other issues that we are just about on top on inside the house.

Thankfully its been quite a while since they have had a serious confrontation with each other. They are both desexed now, which has made it alot more peaceful in our house.

Rat

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It is in fact a submissive posture....and there is nothing wrong with it. It is wrong to stop or interfere with such a natural behaviour simply because either you don't understand it or you might find it 'gross'. These are dogs..not humans in fuzzy suits. They have well programmed instinctual behaviours that are hard wired into them.

So what if they do it for a while? Sorry but I find that more of an intriguing question than a natural canine behaviour.

Agree! They are dogs and that means they are animals.Instincts,fluids,hair,smells,expressions.

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Agreed, Corvus. My four girls lick one another's mouths back and forth with no clear hierarchy. They are a tightly bonded lot . . . when one whelps others get milk and will share in feeding the pups. Mouth and ear licking seems to be part of the bonding.

Interesting account Corvus, we just need to be careful not be be seen as anthropomophising :3monkeys:

Why? Whether or not something is scientific depends on the quality of the observations and questions asked, the rigour of the testing, the openness of the mind, the honesty applied to in attempting to falsify the hypothesis. Not to the pomposity of the language used.

Fear of appearing to be anthropromorphising is likely to lead to pretentious words and closed minds.. . . and timid and boring research papers.

We are animals, and it is to be expected that we will share many attributes with other animals. Affection is a reasonable word to use for bonding, and few would doubt that bonding of various sorts is found in mammals and birds.

Granted, many people do try to map human emotions onto their dogs, often with bad outcomes. But I got no sense that this was happening in this thread.

Sorry if I'm overreacting . . . but I spent many years teaching in the sciences, and few things get up my nose more than people trying to be scientific by using jargon and scientific sounding phrases . . . rather than by asking questions and gathering facts to try and answer those questions.

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sandgrubber, I loathe jargon! When people use it in front of other people that are not in their field it just leads to confusion, excessive questions, and I suspect people only really do it because they think it makes them sound smart. I tend to explain things colloquially using words I expect everyone to understand. I do that to work mates as well. It's just my style of communication and sometimes I get caught out being too colloquial. My bad.

I did my honours thesis in a very specialised field and not even other zoologists knew what I was talking about half the time. It was very frustrating that there was no other way to explain it all without using jargon. I learnt to assume no one would know some of the words I had to use and would explain them before I could be asked.

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It can be just displaying a submissive behaviour in order to appease the human, or to solicit attention - it might be affection, but can also stem from anxiety or stress.

As Corvus mentioned earlier, dominance and submission are relative and can be dynamic in any given relationship. For a different perspective, there is an excellent article titled "Dispelling the Dominance Myth" by Sarah Heath available from the WSAVA 2007 site. I think it's easy to get too hung up on dominance / submission without looking further in to particular behaviours.

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It can be just displaying a submissive behaviour in order to appease the human, or to solicit attention - it might be affection, but can also stem from anxiety or stress.

As Corvus mentioned earlier, dominance and submission are relative and can be dynamic in any given relationship. For a different perspective, there is an excellent article titled "Dispelling the Dominance Myth" by Sarah Heath available from the WSAVA 2007 site. I think it's easy to get too hung up on dominance / submission without looking further in to particular behaviours.

Would you be able to give us a link/website to be able to view the article please? I had a quick google but couldn't find it :rolleyes:

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