The History of Dogs and Kisses
Throughout history, kisses have always been associated with pleasant gestures such as love, affection, and greetings. However, this is only among humans when they kiss one another. There may have been a time when owners didn’t kiss and cuddle their pets because they weren’t really considered part of the family.
However, these days, dogs are very much a part of the family and therefore they receive the same affection and love from owners. Most owners will kiss and cuddle their dogs regularly to show them love and affection.
Research carried out over the years has helped experts to learn how dogs respond to certain gestures from humans. Doggy communication methods are very different from human ones, but they are able to figure out our communication through development over the centuries. We now know that dogs respond to tone when it comes to communication with their owners, and if your kisses are accompanied with a pleasant and gentle tone, they will start associating that particular gesture with that happiness.
Signs Your Dog Understands Human Kisses
Domesticated dogs in happy households learn human kisses from their owners. From an early age, their owners shower them with human kisses, pets, and gentle tones, sending the message that human kisses are a positive thing. For this reason, many domesticated dogs learn that human kisses are positive affection, even though they aren’t biologically evolved to understand kisses from their birth.
With that being said, dogs who have never experienced human kisses before don’t quite know what to do with it and they do not know what it means. Because human kisses are not something that dogs have evolved to understand, puppies and abused dogs simply don’t understand this behavior.
Is it safe to kiss a dog on the head, nose, or cheek?
Yes, it is safe to kiss a dog on the head, nose, or cheek. Dogs can enjoy kisses and they often lick people back to show their affection. When you kiss a dog, you are simply returning the gesture. Of course, you should always wash your hands after any animal contact, just to be safe.
Do Dogs Understand Hugs and Kisses?
It’s a natural human reaction to want to kiss those that we love but do dogs like kisses? What is going through your four-legged friend’s mind when you pucker up? Here, we explore the fascinating world of canine affection and set out everything you need to know about showing your love for your dog. And that includes dog kisses!
Most species of animals can only communicate with themselves. Mice communicate with other mice, snakes communicate with other snakes and so on. But dogs have been our companions for so long that communication channels between dogs and humans have opened up. This very special bond allows dogs to understand quite a lot of what humans are trying to communicate to them and to respond in a way that humans can interpret. This is achieved by looking at each other and other body postures, through sounds (vocalizing), through smells and through tactile (touch) communications which would include kissing and hugging.
This is where the difficulty lies. Dogs use all of the above-listed routes of communication all the time to interact with other dogs – except for touch. Dogs do touch each other sometimes but it is not their preferred way to communicate. For humans, however, it is a very important human-to-human communication pathway. It is not surprising, therefore, that we want to hug and kiss our dogs to communicate our love for them.