Dog licking another dog's face

[mruffruff]

Chiquita has been giving all of the other dogs quick face licks. She seems to be playing, but I wonder if she's trying to assert her (nonexistent) authority over them. It started when the pups were allowed to mingle with the others, and continues even with no puppies in the house.

Does this have any real significance?

Mary

[catwoman]

Sorry if this grosses anyone out ...

Wolf puppies often lick the faces of adult wolves. The licking encourages the adults to vomit up their dinners ... providing meat the puppies can easily digest.

When you introduce new puppies to adult wolves, it is best to feed the adults just before ... to encourage this natural bonding behavior between adults and pups.

Did your puppies doing this ever cause one of you adult dogs to vomit, by any chance?

Since it is done by submissive puppies to (more) dominant adults, I woul guess that an adult dog doing this is seeking attention from the more dominant dogs in this way because she saw it working for the puppies. It's probably not a hunger thing ... just an attempt at bonding.

Catwoman
(who used to volunteer at a wolf habitat)

[wolflady]

Looks like I have another wolf afficionado here
Actually, the kind of behavior your dog is making sounds more like a greeting to the other dogs, and it is a submissive greeting. Working with and observing the wolves at Wolf Park in college, I saw this sort of thing a lot! The submissive wolves will greet or "rally" to the alpha wolves by licking their faces. Other members will greet each other in the same fasion.
Catwoman is right about the puppies doing that to get food from the adults. This only occurs if the food source is far away from a den and the adults have to eat the food first to get it back to the pups. We didn't have any of that happen at Wolf Park since everyone was all together, so I would asssume your dog is simply greeting the other dogs

[wolflady]

Catwoman, which wolf habitat did you do volunteer work for?? Cool! We can share our experiences? I worked at Wolf Park in Battleground, IN http://www.wolfpark.org It was the best experience!!!! How about you?

[aly]

Reece licks Lolly's face all the time. He does this in a submissive, respectful way because she is definately Alpha!

[catwoman]

Originally posted by wolflady
Catwoman, which wolf habitat did you do volunteer work for?? Cool! We can share our experiences? I worked at Wolf Park in Battleground, IN http://www.wolfpark.org It was the best experience!!!! How about you?

I worked for Bays Mountain Park in Kingsport, TN. http://home.naxs.com/baysmtn/ Check it out! (And BTW, we got our two female wolves from Wolf Park! Neat, huh?)

Dianne

[wolflady]

How cool, Dianne!! I hadn't heard of Bays Mountain Park before, but it looks like a very pretty place I wonder who the parent wolves at Wolf Park were for the wolves that Bays received. I think it's great that facilities will swap wolves to keep the gene pool clean. Wolf Park donates a lot of wolves to various facilities. The past couple of years, however, there haven't been any puppies born as the alpha female has been sterilized. It's a good thing too, because the alpha male is her bro! Yuk! LOL Anyway, I was lucky enough to work there for 2 years in college (years 1995-1997) and the times I worked, I got to be there for the births of the puppies by Altair and Chinook (both have since passed on ) as well as the rare instance of one of our lower ranking females(Karin) having puppies. It was pretty exciting to have 2 litters of pups in one year. That hardly ever happens, since the alpha female usually prevents it.
What sorts of things did you get to do at Bays? Of course, when I first started volunteering, I got to do a LOT of the grunt work...aka cleaning enclosures (when it's 90 degrees and humid, it's a very nasty job...), seating people for the lectures and taking money at the gate. But, the cool thing about it was, when cleaning the enclosures...I got to go in with the wolves! The more you volunteered, the more "wolf time" you would get, and I got to start helping out with the wolf/bison demonstrations on Saturdays. All in all, it was one of the best experiences I had in college

[catwoman]

Wolflady,

I volunteered for about two years ... did the educational programs for school groups about our wolves and our snakes, and our more generalized "habitat walk" which included our deer, bobcats, raccoons, waterfowl, and river otters as well. Giving the wolf program was my favorite. Our park naturalists would "howl" from a distance: since the wolves were all hand raised at the park, it would start a pep rally howl amongst the pack members!

I never went inside the pens … not allowed to do that without attending special courses (at Wolf Park, I believe.) But it was great fun all the same …

Dianne

[wolflady]

What a neat experience! Yes, we had to attend a few "classes" about going in the wolf enclosures before we were actually allowed. The volunteers have to go through this process, especially since so many new people get involved each year. Some of the wolves don't take to new people as quickly as others if at all, so there are certain wolves that we were introduced to first, just to get used to the idea. Especially since we had to be "accepted" into the pack and wolves had a tendency of greeting us 2 legged pack members like they would the other wolf pack members. So, the first time I had a wolf jump up and lick me in the face during a greeting, it was a little startling! LOL Kiri was my favorite wolf, as he was the pack clown But, he had a tendency to nip people's calves which caused alarm in some of the volunteers.
We also had "howl nights" friday nights and saturday nights where we on the staff would howl and get the people in the stands to howl and that would get our wolves (and wild Bill the coyote) howling. What a glorious sound, huh??! I always loved it. I would love to go back there and work....maybe someday...

[catwoman]

Oh, forgot to tell you ... our females were born April 1992.

[catwoman]

Our wolves only howled for the naturalists and "puppy parents" (voices they recognized.) If anyone else howled (like me) ... they just stared at you silently!

I would love to have attended the courses and gone inside. That must have been wonderful! I did go inside the outer fence once, to observe them feeding on a roadkill deer. Could not get over how huge they are up close! So much bigger than dogs!

[AvaJoy]

Hi ~ I usually post on the cat board, but I have 2 Siberians and Shasta (turned 13 on Valentine's Day!) was licking Sadie's (age 12) ears and it seems due to an ear infection. So . . . if you notice your dogs engaging in this behavior, you might want to consult your vet.

Regarding the mention of wolves, and being as Huskies are very close to them, our vet who specializes in canine behavior stated that Shasta could be set free and would probably fend for herself quite nicely. She gulps down birds that she catches and is extremely bright and always on the alert. She is not a people dog. Sadie, on the other hand, is sweet and goofy and would NEVER survive on her own in the wild. Interesting!