Wow, this sure is counter-intuitive. Watching Po the other day, I was pondering more efficient ways for a dog to drink water. I mean, why doesn’t he just hold his breath, stick his snout in the bowl and suck? OK, it might take a leap of faith for a dog to do that due to inconvenient nostril placement. 
Meanwhile, I’ve always assumed that dogs and cats scooped up the water in their tongue like a bucket. Turns out that was right, albeit backwards… in the slow-mo video below, you can see that dogs actually use the back of their tongue as a scoop, not the front (which is the way I would do it)!
Update: After some encouragement in the comments, Dusty sent along a video of Sarah (a six month old Gordon Setter) drinking through her snout like a straw! It may not be slow motion, but you can still clearly see her unusual approach to the problem towards the end of the video. Check it out:
22 Comments
Interesting. Nice observation
Show him a tap and he will drink much more. My dog used to burp after he drank out of a tap.
Counter-intuitive yet logical I think. As you said, it is a way to protect it’s nose.
@ldng: How does the whole backwards-tongue-bucket thing protect its nose?
Lower chance for the water to splash up into the nostrils?
I don’t think many creatures can cut off the flow of air through their nostrils when they breathe through their mouths. Not sure about that.
But if you could train the dog to hold it’s nose with one paw and maybe use a straw I think we’d be getting somewhere.
I had a lurcher who when exercising used to run though a rhyne/deep puddle/peat ditc, stick her jaw into the water and scoop up water like a steam-train.
If you don’t know how steam trains scoop water:
http://jimquest.com/writ/trains/pans/scoop2.htm
p.s. that’s totally weird
I have a dog that actually does close to what you describe, she sticks her snout all the way in and as near as we can tell she starts swallowing with her mouth all the way underwater rather than sucking it in. We think she blows bubbles out her nose while doing this but it’s hard to tell, there’s a lot of water splashing going on. It’s pretty bizarre.
@Dusty: Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to get a slow motion recording of that!
Dusty, I also want to see slow motion video of your dog drinking water.
Did not expect to be saying such a thing today, heh.
I’ll see what I can do for still-shots and/or a Powershot “pocket camera” video but that’s all I have so slo-mo unfortunately aint happening. I don’t have any hosting right now tho, can I email to webmaster@bethesignal.org?
I tried to sneak up on her earlier and got one quick action shot at a bad angle and a decent post-shot of her snout all wet but she’s a 6mo old puppy so as soon as she realizes I’m nearby it’s playtime. Ever tried to get a dog, let alone a puppy, to drink on command? NOT easy…
@Dusty: If you can’t do rapid shots with your camera, I reckon the video approach might be helpful — at least some of the frames should indicate what on earth is going on.
(You’re welcome to mail me at “jdub” at this domain.)
Woo, Dusty has sent me a video of Sarah drinking… as soon as I get permission, I’ll whack it on YouTube and post it here.
Thanks for satisfying our curiosity, Dusty!
This is just unfounded assumption, but it’s possible that they lick backwards to prevent errant water droplets from ending up going up their nose. They are basically tossing the water into their mouths, so if they toss it close to the nose it becomes likely that some will get in.
Freaky! Who’d have thought!?
Post updated with video of Sarah.
There are only a small set of mammals that can control their breathing as humans can and all of them that I know of are aquatic. (Whales, Dolphins, Seals, Otters etc)
This is one reason some scientists suspect that humans are actually evolved to fish and swim (aquatic apes) rather than hunt on the prairie as in traditional explanations.
Sucking requires breathing control, you have to use your lungs to suck in liquids and sometimes solids and then redirect them into the digestive tract… dangerous. Thank Darwin for coughing then.
Hi
I think wolfs suck water, and dogs scoop it. That’s what i was told when I was a kid.
I’m trying to find internet reference to confirm, but can’t find it.
sorry, french legend: they scoop too:
http://tecfa.unige.ch/tecfa/teaching/UVLibre/9899/fev2000/croyances.htm
This comment thread is pretty weird.
All mammals can suck from birth - think about it.
When we suck we use our tongues as a pump, so we can breathe at the same time.
I am not sure that dogs can hold their breath, but as they can swim and hunt in water, I suspect they can.
I think that at least one dog can hold its breath under water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_jSlrc4JKs