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Stories about lap dogs are everywhere, but researchers can tell the story of dog lapping. Using photography and laboratory simulations, researchers studied how dogs raise fluids into their mouths to drink. They discovered that sloppy-looking actions at the dog bowl are in fact high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dog’s ability to acquire fluids.
Researchers also compared what they learned about how dogs drink with what they knew from previous studies of cats. The scientists discovered that even though feline and canine mouths structurally are similar, their approaches to drinking are as different as — cats and dogs.Image credit: Jake Socha, Sean Gart, Sunghwan Jung, Virginia Tech
