Identifying Puppy "Kissing" or Licking
October 12, 2009 by Paris and John
Filed under Celebrity Tips, Tips
Every puppy likes to give a little “kiss” to his new family members. But when is a “kiss” an obsession?
In last week’s interview with Cesar Millan (the National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer) regarding his new book and companion show on How to Raise the Perfect Dog, we asked the dog expert just how to know if the licking was normal puppy licking or obsessive licking:
The mother doesn’t allow obsession…even when the mother is breastfeeding, when she’s done, she’s done. Even if the puppies still want to go for it. Obsession is actually something that people nurture.
Licking, again, is grooming. Licking is soothing the other dogs around there. It’s just as human … as kissing. So the interpretation that we do to the licking—it changes—so a lot of people say, “He’s kissing. I don’t want [him] to stay away. I don’t want to stop him from kissing me.”
Again, we have to see it from their point of view, not for what we make out of it, so I have never seen a dog, a puppy, licking the mother and the mother not putting a limit in it. I have never seen a dog that nurtures instability.
Well, excessive licking—we are talking about excessive licking—licking is normal, but when they do it for more than 30 seconds, 40 seconds [it is excessive.] I don’t know if you saw the episode that I did for the puppy mills—there was a little terrier that was, as soon as you put your hands on her body she would lick, lick, lick, but this is what they do because they are so anxious. They start licking the fence and, in the puppy mills, humans don’t touch so they lick the fence, so then they transfer this behavior to the human and the human.
I was there and I said ‘No, no more’ and the dog is like ‘Thank you so much’, and you can see the relief. You can see the ‘thank you. This is not normal for me to be licking obsessively.’
Photo courtesy National Geographic Channel
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