Why Can’t Dogs Drink Water Like Humans?

August 23, 2018

During the summer months and after playful exercise, your dog’s thirst can increase by as much as four times. That means more splashing and dribbling at the water bowl. Wouldn’t it just be easier to hand your dog a straw?

Dogs’ cheeks are incomplete

Dogs are predatory by nature and like other animals who fall into this category, their cheeks and lips lack the necessary muscles to allow sucking and drinking like humans. The absence of these muscles is a benefit, however, as it allows your dog to pull back their cheeks into a Joker wide grin in order to catch and kill his prey.

It’s also the reason why dogs can’t purse their lips and kiss you back. They use their tongues instead to show affection. Those tongues have another important function which is the role of soup ladle to spoon water into their mouths when thirst demands it. 

Fluid dynamics reveal how dogs drink water

One study out of Virginia Tech and Purdue University interested in fluid mechanics took a closer look at a dog drinking using stop-motion photography. What seems like a messy endeavour is actually the “result of high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dog’s ability to acquire fluids.”

Ever noticed how your dog’s tongue curls downwards when they pant? That’s a clue into how your dog laps up water.

Instead of curling upwards like our tongues when we eat ice cream, for example, a dog’s tongue curls backwards. When they’re thirsty, they plunge their long tongues into the water, curling it back to form a small cup, before scooping it up into their mouths. With each gulp, they must close their mouth or the water will simply dribble out. 

But there’s another reason why your dog plunges his tongue into his bowl of water with such velocity. As a secondary function to the soup ladle tongue, the “high-speed, precisely timed movements” create a jet of water or what the scientists termed, “a water column.” When your dog retracts his tongue through the water, this jet of water shoots up into your dog’s mouth. Your dog will bite at this jet of water and gulp it down with every lap of water. So he’s getting twice as much water with one action. It’s just amazing how he or she doesn’t bite their own tongue.

Watch the video to see this action in slow motion:

Now that we understand how a dog drinks water, it makes sense to provide them deep bowls of water and not shallow ones. Vets recommend one ounce of water per one pound of body weight per day, but obviously in the summer months, your dog will require more.

If you’re venturing outside for a walk or a game of fetch, make sure you take some water with you. Dog’s need water to help themselves keep cool and as a result can dehydrate quite quickly.

by Natalie Secretan
MetroDogWalker.com

Photo by Davide Cassanello - Aww thanks man