Why Does My Dog Keep Smacking His Lips - T-Tees - Your Answers Await, Life's Questions Unraveled

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If you own a dog, you know they do some pretty strange things from time to time.

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While we don’t understand all canine actions, let’s take a look at the most agreed-upon reasons for some of those strange dog behaviors.

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Lip smacking

Sometimes humans lick and smack their lips when they anticipate food is coming. Dogs often do the same thing.

However, dogs also smack their lips at other times, when food does not seem to be anywhere near. The most common reason for lip smacking in your dog is stress.

For some reason, lip smacking is a calming behavior for dogs; and you will often see this behavior when you are scolding the dog or if they are experiencing something that frightens them, like a thunderstorm or loud noise.

Dogs will also smack their lips around a more powerful dog. It is believed this is a way to show the larger dog they are not a threat. Bottom line: if your dog is frequently smacking its lips and there is no food nearby, something is bothering them.

Hugging anxiety

Dogs love us and we love our dogs. However, dogs do not understand our hugging behavior and misinterpret it as something completely different. If one dog puts a leg on top of another dog, it might look cute to us — but what is really happening is that one dog is saying it is dominant over the other one. So, it’s not a hug. It’s a message that says “I’m in charge” in most cases.

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While your dog knows you are in charge, it has an instinctual reaction to not really enjoy hugs. Of course, some dogs put up with a good hug more than others. But in general, dogs are not a fan. It’s not because they don’t love you. They just don’t understand the meaning of the behavior.

Sniffing butts

One of the grossest things your dog does is sniff the butt of another dog. Why would any living thing want to do that? A dog’s sense of smell is many thousands of times more powerful than a human’s. That doesn’t answer this question quite yet though — it kind of makes it even more gross. It’s the next part that makes the difference.

There is a special area in the dog’s nose that allows it to ignore the smell of dog poop and instead smell the glands that are just inside a dog’s anus. These glands release chemicals that tell the dog’s body how to grow and deal with health issues.

A dog’s amazing sense of smell can tell all kinds of things by sniffing these glands. One sniff will tell them if the dog is a male or female, how old they are, if they are healthy or sick and even what kind of mood they are in at the time. In just a few seconds and a couple sniffs, the two dogs know almost everything there is to know about each other.

Settling at your feet

Once you find your comfortable spot in bed, your dog might jump up and settle at your feet. Even when invited up closer to your body, they may retreat back to your feet for the rest of the night. Why is this? Experts who study dogs say there could be several reasons for this behavior but there is one leading hypothesis.

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First, all dogs have instincts that go back to the wild. In the wild, there is a pack leader. That pack leader is now you. The pack leader would decide when it is time to rest — and once they lie down, the other dogs will settle all around them, often looking outward to guard against any threats. Since you are the pack leader, they find a spot where they can protect you from any threats.

You might be thinking, “My dog doesn’t move for anything.” But the reality is that, while your big dog might seem to be completely out, a car door in the middle of the night will likely have them jumping up to make sure everything is OK.

Humans have taken a lot of wild out of our dogs — but not all of it. They still don’t love hugs and sniff butts as a greeting. But in the end, their main goal is to love and protect their pack leader, which is you.

Mike Szydlowski is science coordinator for Columbia Public Schools.

TIME FOR A POP QUIZ

1. Why do dogs still have behaviors from the wild when they were never in the wild?

2. What special organ do dogs have in their noses that we do not?

3. If your dog is smacking their lips frequently and food is not around, what is your dog likely feeling?

4. What does your dog think you are saying when you give it a hug?

5. Research question — what is another dog behavior that you have seen and why do they do it? Do some research and let us know what you found.

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LAST WEEK’S POP QUIZ ANSWERS

1. Previous shifts in human skin color happened for all humans. Why did this not happen in this way later on?

As humans started to migrate to different parts of the world, their population’s skin color shifted over time due to the amount of UV light in that area.

2. Humans developed the perfect dark skin to help them survive their environment. Why was that dark skin now hurting some populations?

As some of the human population moved away from the equator, their darker skin blocked the lower amount of UV light hitting their bodies and their bodies were now becoming deficient in Vitamin D.

3. Why are some populations far away from the equator not the lightest skin of all?

Those same populations eat foods with a lot of Vitamin D, so their skin did not need to change in order to give their bones the nutrients they need.

4. How does this story compare to how changes in an animal habitat can be so disruptive?

This story shows how just moving to an area with less UV light causes enough of a birth rate decrease that natural selection causes skin color to change. An animal’s habitat change usually is even larger of a change and can have devastating effects.

5. Why does science not agree with the modern human behavior of assigning races to people based on their skin color?

Scientific evidence has clearly shown that the only reason that humans developed different skin color is based on where their ancestors were in relation to the equator and has nothing to do with any other human characteristics.

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Category: WHY