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Expert explains why dogs lick you: “It’s a little bit of a request…”
When a dog showers you with kisses, it’s often to show you affection — but there’s also a reason that’s rooted in their evolutionary history.
To better understand the reasoning behind a dog’s licks, Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, a dog cognition researcher and bestselling author of “The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves,” told “CBS Mornings Plus” on Thursday that we should look at their ancestors.
Dogs are descended from wolves and when wolves hunt and return to their pack, then all of the other wolves swarm them and lick around their face.
“The reason they do that is they’re asking the wolf to regurgitate a little bit of what they just hunted,” Horowitz explained. “So, your dog’s lick of you when you come home is absolutely a greeting — you know, they’re happy to see you. But also, it’s a little bit of a request for whatever you just ate.”
They’re also using a lick to get information about the world.
“They’re smelling you by licking you,” Horowitz added.
Deciphering your dog’s behavior
Dog owners often believe they can understand their pets, identifying whether their dog is barking to go on a walk, begging for food or trying to find their trapped tennis ball.
“On some level, they are communicating with us. We’re not always good at interpreting what they’re saying,” said Horowitz.
For example, you can easily tell when a dog has a “guilty look,” putting their ears back or whimpering. But the reason behind this may not be what you think.
“It turns out that [guilty look] is actually just a response to us and our thinking that they’ve done something wrong. It’s a submissive or appeasing behavior that they put on that’s super cute and it’s a request to not be punished. And it usually works,” Horowitz said.
We can also interpret our dog’s feelings by looking at their tails.
“It’s more than just happiness,” Horowitz said.
A low tail wag between the legs can represent anxiety, concern or nervousness. A real high tail wag, like a flag, can represent something a dog is interested in.
Parallel worlds
While dogs are really good at fitting into the human world, they experience the world differently than us.
“The way we see the world — dogs smell it… They’re living in a kind of parallel universe to us,” Horowitz. “We should let them sniff things. We should appreciate that that’s how they’re seeing the world.”
CBS News
Washington Post declines to endorse a presidential candidate, angering staffers and subscribers
The Washington Post’s publisher, William Lewis, on Friday said the newspaper would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election or in future elections, a stance that sparked outrage from and some of its current and former employees, as well as subscribers.
“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote in a note published on the newspaper’s website.
The decision follows a move by Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong to block that newspaper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, which has sparked the resignation of the editorials editor, Mariel Garza, followed by the resignations of two other members of its editorial board.
Both Soon-Shiong and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos are billionaires who made their fortunes outside the media industry.
Former WaPo editor objects
Media observers decried the decisions, while some readers of the newspapers said they are canceling their subscriptions.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” wrote Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, who retired in 2021, on X Friday about the Washington Post’s decision. Former President Donald Trump “will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
The Washington Post Guild, which represents roughly 1,000 journalists and other workers at the media company, expressed concern that corporate management had interfered with the paper’s editorial decision-making process.
“According to our reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos,” the labor group said In a post on X. “We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers. The decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Robert Kagan, an editor at large for the Washington Post, resigned from the editorial board as result of the decision not to endorse a candidate, according to NPR’s David Folkenflik. “Kagan has been a persistent conservative critic of Trump, tying him to an autocratic tradition,” Folkenflik wrote on X. “Uniformly outraged response from staff.”
Some readers of both the Post and the Los Angeles Times said they planned to cancel their subscriptions, with some posting images of their subscription cancellation notices.
“Great, another billionaire protecting his own self-interest instead of the country’s. Nice knowing you, @washingtonpost. Subscription canceled,” wrote Hollywood director Paul Feig on X.
Zach Wahls, an Iowa state senator and a Democrat, wrote, “I am a strong believer in paying for serious, high-quality journalism, and that is exactly why I am canceling my @washingtonpost subscription over this timid, cowardly decision that could not come at a worse possible — or more revealing — time.”
The vast majority of reader responses on social media were negative, with many saying they had canceled their subscriptions, although a few expressed support for the Washington Post. “For the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of the Washington Post,” one reader wrote.
Lewis didn’t immediately return a request for comment, nor did Los Angeles Times executive editor Terry Tang.
Los Angeles Times resignations
On Thursday, Los Angeles Times veteran journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein announced their resignations one day after the editorial page editor Garza left in protest over Soon-Shiong’s decision not to endorse a candidate.
Greene, a Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial writing, said in a statement shared with the Columbia Journalism Review that he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision not to endorse Harris.
“I recognize that it is the owner’s decision to make,” he wrote. “But it hurt particularly because one of the candidates, Donald Trump, has demonstrated such hostility to principles that are central to journalism — respect for the truth and reverence for democracy.”
Garza said the board had intended to endorse Harris and that she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial, but that was blocked by Soon-Shiong.
An editorial board operates separately from the newsroom, and its writers’ job is to present an issue and then take a side and lay out arguments to defend it.
contributed to this report.
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Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh dies at 84
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Norah O’Donnell interviews Vice President Kamala Harris across CBS News platforms beginning Oct. 27
“CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell will interview Vice President Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend for a CBS News exclusive.
O’Donnell will join the Democratic presidential candidate on the campaign trail in Houston and Kalamazoo to provide viewers with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the final days of her campaign.
The interview with the Democratic presidential nominee will air first on “CBS News Sunday Morning” on Sunday, October 27, at 9:00 a.m. ET., with additional excerpts of the interview appearing on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” “CBS Mornings,” the “CBS Evening News,” and on the CBS News 24/7 Streaming Network.
Plus, tune in to “Face the Nation” on Sunday for moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan’s interview with Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET.
The Emmy Award-winning “Sunday Morning” is broadcast Sundays on CBS beginning at 9 a.m. ET. “Sunday Morning” also streams on the CBS News app [beginning at 11 a.m. ET] and on Paramount+, and is available on cbs.com and cbsnews.com.
Be sure to follow us at cbssundaymorning.com, and on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.