Why Do Dogs Lick So Much?

Dogs lick to tell their story. Their use it to show their affection and their devotion towards their loved ones. This is how they behave and show loyalty. If you are a true dog lover, you probably enjoy the no holds barred greeting from your doggish friend the second step you take in your home. There is nothing that can compete with their enthusiastic inhaling, desperate tail wagging, and that slobbery licking on the face that leaves you dripping with saliva.

But have you ever thought of why do they lick humans? Some possibilities are to show affection or to gain your attention, to converse with you, to show you that you are the owner or the boss, to play around, and to know more about you. Plus, sometimes they like how you taste or they think you enjoy a good licking!

To Show Their Love

Dogs lick as a way of showing their love and affection for their owners. Dogs are known to be naturally affectionate animals and they have multiple ways of showing their love. When the dog licks you, their brains makes happiness hormones, and this helps in calming them down. One can simply match and compare this feeling with the sense of security a child has when parents hug or kiss them. The most loving thing about them is that they lick you when they know you are sick or feeling low.

To Interconnect

Humans mostly communicate or connect with sound and body language, so normally when a person witness its dog wagging tail or licking them you think they are maybe warning you of danger or trying to tell you something. However, licking and other gestures are a type of canine communication. Maybe they are trying to tell you that they are hungry, thirsty, or maybe they want to play a game. No matter what ever it is, there might be many different reasons for that, so make sure you spend as much time as you can to understand as much as you can about them.

To Seek Devotion

Not many people could understand what a dog is thinking. There is a reason behind why they seek their attention and do every devoted things to get the devotion from you. It can be related to the kind of feeling a child has to play smooth tricks to seek attention from their parents.  Dogs wag their tails, bark, rub themselves against you, and would jump on you to show the feelings they have for you by giving you those kisses full of saliva. This usually happens when you are trying to give attention to someone or something else.

To Show Submission

The most important part of why dogs lick could be out of submission to their owner. Animals that once lived in packs, like dogs, are said to lick as a gesture of submission. They notify you that you have their respect and conformity, and they are actually indicating their demotion to you and that you are the leader of their pack. They also do this to the other members in your family or maybe your friends or relatives who have won its respect.

To Discover

Licking also has something to do with dogs natural tendencies as hunters, which also shows their time in the pre-domestication days. There is nothing of danger here; it’s similar to how human look around the world to explore and to make a living. In the same way dogs would explore in the wild with their superior sense of smell and taste they explore and sense people and learn about different objects living or nonliving. Licking and tasting also helps dogs to get aware of things around them.

To Explore Taste

Dog can identify you by your characterized scent; by licking you they can recognize you through the taste of your skin. They recognize you with the sweat that is released through your pores. And once they lick that taste, they get the identity of you and any other person they lick in their mind and that is something they never forget. Some dogs also lick because they love the salty taste of your skin.

They Assume You Enjoy

They think you enjoy the licking. Because you boost them when they lick you, this makes them think that you also love the licks. So they keep doing it around round and round until you tell them not to anymore. Once you tell the dog not to lick and that you don’t like it, and then they very soon change their habit of licking. This doesn’t mean that they will stop doing this to everyone but yes, they will come to know of who likes their licking and who doesn’t.

If you see a dog frequently licking themselves, this might also be a sign of boredom, sickness or could be pain either in the paws or elsewhere in the body. You should have a good understanding and knowledge of your pet in order to know what signal they are trying to show you with that licking.

If a dog is frequently licking themselves, it can be because they are bored, anxious, have skin problems such as allergies, or could be feeling pain either in their paws or elsewhere in their bodies. You should rule out any infections or allergies by visiting your vet.