Why Dogs lick faces.

Humans have believed for years that dogs show their love and affection by licking a humans face. If the humans ever find out the truth, they will be very upset. We don’t lick their faces to show love. We don’t lick faces to share our affection. We lick human’s faces to clean our tongues. Our tongues hang out a lot because we have to pant to stay cool. Our tongues get dry and dirty from the dust in the house; we pick up what your vacuum cleaner misses. So we lick faces to clean all of the dust and dirt off of our tongues. It leaves our mouth tasting better. We are relocating the dust and dirt, leaving our tongues tasting much better. Sometimes we have to lick faces to clean our tongue after eating that horrible food they insist on feeding us. Where do they find that stuff? You try eating "lamb and rice" for 60 meals a month? Not even real meat, but just trimmings and by-products, they won't even list most of the nasty things they put into our food. Talk about tasting bad and boring!!!!

Talking about bad tasting things, why do humans throw tennis balls in the dust and dirt, and then expect us to fetch them. Do humans like the taste of dirt? Could you at least wash the tennis balls off once in a while? Be careful where you throw them if you want us to pick them up with our mouths. There is a certain amount of revenge involved in placing a slobbery, dirty tennis ball into a humans hand, then running away for them to throw the ball so we can fetch it again, placing a dirty, slobbery ball into their hands again.

My human has a beard, there is usually something left over from his lunch on his face to make my tongue taste better. I try to bump his hand when he is eating; it makes his face taste better. Sometimes we lick faces and hands because it is easier than panting. Humans are always cool, if not we can slobber on them and cool them down, then lick them and we cool down as well. It is simply a matter of planning ahead.

Brushing our teeth helps clean our tongue and freshen our mouth, but why mint flavor toothpaste? Why not Duck flavored or Bacon flavored toothpaste? Prairie Dog flavor would be nice, or Squirrel flavor for a change.

I hope this helps to clear up the human/dog relationship a little.


Mogley G. Retriever