My 7 month old puppy won't stop licking us!

[wendykwilliamspe]

My 7 month old, 30 pound puppy, Khaleesi, is an adorable terrier mix of some sort that we got from the shelter at 9 weeks. She loves people and she loves dogs but she won't stop licking people, especially us, the two adults she lives with. It may be submissive, she is definitely submissive with dogs at first, but she doesn't seem to be an overly anxious dog. It seems more of an attention-getting behavior, but she would rather lick you than be petted. She loves mouths, faces, hands, legs, anything she can get your attention with, I guess.Any ideas? Thanks, Wendy

[JMFS]

I am with you on the annoyance over licking. I love dogs but I can't Stand the licking - yuck! Their tongues are their hands and I certainly don't like people wiping their hands all over me and a dog tongue is no different (well, worse, really because humans generally won't touch half of what dogs will put in their mouths)! I train my pups not to lick by removing myself from their vicinity. E.g., if they lick my hand I'll move away from them and say, "no licking!" It takes some repetition because dogs love to lick and to them it's the most natural thing in the world. Adrienne can flesh that out, I'm sure, with more tactics. You could also redirect her to a treat or toy that she could lick instead. From what I've read it can be a sign of distress, a sign of affection, a self-soothing action, or a multitude of other reasons. In your case it sounds like affection, and what better way to soothe oneself than to shower a loved one with affection? :D

 

I think my dogs pick up quickly on how much disdain I have for being licked by my disgusted reaction and they have stopped within the first couple weeks of coming home. They'll test the waters with other people, but a quick, "no lick," from me gets them to stop. The only licks I get now are the "kiss to dismiss" when I get too close to their face or hold their paw. It's a fast lick and it's normally only one to say, "stop it!" Abbi will lick my husband for 10 minutes but she won't even try it with me.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

My 7 month old, 30 pound puppy, Khaleesi, is an adorable terrier mix of some sort that we got from the shelter at 9 weeks. She loves people and she loves dogs but she won't stop licking people, especially us, the two adults she lives with. It may be submissive, she is definitely submissive with dogs at first, but she doesn't seem to be an overly anxious dog. It seems more of an attention-getting behavior, but she would rather lick you than be petted. She loves mouths, faces, hands, legs, anything she can get your attention with, I guess.Any ideas? Thanks, Wendy

 

Jennifer's tips are spot on. When we remove ourselves from a dog who is looking for attention, we are no longer fueling the behavior, in other words, we remove what gives oxygen to the behavior. This method is known as "negative punishment," the removal of something the dog wants/likes which ends up weakening a behavior. Trial after trial, we should be therefore extinguishing the licking behavior because the behavior no longer works since we are removing our attention contingent upon the licking.

 

At the same time, we can also ask ourselves what would we like our dogs to do instead to replace the licking. There are dozens of other behaviors that we can reinforce so that our puppy learns a more appropriate way to interact with us that doesn't involve licking. We can therefore train our pup to do some hand targeting: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/preschool/targeting/

 

In this exercise, make sure to be fast to click/say yes to mark that nose target before your puppy tries to lick. You can toss the treat so that your pup gets a little workout too.

 

Or we can train our puppy to come to sit, lie down or do a trick when she walks towards us with the intent to lick. Redirecting to a toy is also a good idea as Jennifer pointed out.

 

With licking when petting her, we need to be observant: can it be she's licking as a way to stop hands from petting her? Some dogs aren't too crazy about being touched and the licking is their way of getting our hands off of them. Then on the other hand, she could be sort of "exchanging the favor" some dogs are just that way and like to lick as they would groom another dog who is grooming them.

 

An exercise I would try is to keep some kibble handy ( you can use a portion from her meal) and pass your hand on her body in one stroke as if petting her and give her a kibble right after while telling her "good girl!" as we present the kibble and she eats. For each little stroke, one kibble. After some time of doing this, does her licking seem to subside? Perhaps she needs to learn to like being handled/pet. Many breeders slack on getting puppies used to being handled from a young age. These pups may instinctively want to bite, but some pups who were corrected for biting or who are naturally submissive/polite may opt to lick instead.

 

After several sessions, we can then start doing 2 strokes for one kibble, then gradually increase the stroking to 3-4 strokes for one kibble and then so forth, increasing the stroking and giving the kibble now only every now and then. Then, we can progress to touching various body parts and go back momentarily to giving one kibble for each stroke and see how it goes. If all goes well, we can increase the length/quantity of stroking per kibble, until we can start giving kibble intermittently, but while still giving feedback (good girl!). If the licking decreases and she tolerates more and more being pet, this can be a sign that she just needed to learn to enjoy handling.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Adrienne Farricelli

[JMFS]

Boy I sure made it sound simple back then.  I didn't have an Esther.  This dog is an enthusiastic licker, ugh.  She's quick, too, lol.  I've determined she just loves to taste Everything.  I had my head on my desk a moment ago and I had Gertie on one side, Esther on the other, and was petting them both.  Everything was calm and sweet as I was scratching their chests and destressing, but noooo, Esther had to ruin the moment.  She gave me a fast flick of her tongue on my mouth, gag.  I know what goes into that maw, lmao!  🤢  I wasn't even expecting it she's so fast.  What do you do for a one lick offender?  A drive-by licker?  Lickety splitter?  A lick bomber?  Haha  It's so much easier when they continually lick!  Maybe she'll eventually grow out of it since the worst of it has subsided.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

"Boy I sure made it sound simple back then.  I didn't have an Esther.  This dog is an enthusiastic licker, ugh.  She's quick, too, lol.  I've determined she just loves to taste Everything.  I had my head on my desk a moment ago and I had Gertie on one side, Esther on the other, and was petting them both.  Everything was calm and sweet as I was scratching their chests and destressing, but noooo, Esther had to ruin the moment. She gave me a fast flick of her tongue on my mouth, gag.  I know what goes into that maw, lmao!  🤢  I wasn't even expecting it she's so fast.  What do you do for a one lick offender?  A drive-by licker?  Lickety splitter?  A lick bomber?  Haha  It's so much easier when they continually lick!  Maybe she'll eventually grow out of it since the worst of it has subsided"

LOL! I love the drive'by licker" description, it gives you the idea perfectly!

Ha! I can see how things may look different looking back. Every dog is so precious to us from a dog studying viewpoint, (even though they may often engage in annoying behaviors) because they all teach us new things, get our creative juices flowing in troubleshooting and, just like snowflakes, there are no two dogs alike. 

Like Esther, many dogs are prone to "tasting".  Einstein used to engage in "tasting" too like an old wise wine connoisseur. He used to lick all the used dog textbooks I used to get in the mail from a second-hand online store and would teeth chatter too, sending scent molecules to his incisive papilla up to his Jacobson organ and you could literally see him evaluate the smells. I used to love to watch him engage in this fine art, imagining how life must feel to a dog as a macrosmatic being. 

I can see the challenge with these quick mouth licks as they catch us off guard, leaving us little wiggle room for prevention. With younger dogs it's quite common (it's a behavior reminiscent of puppyhood pups soliciting mother dogs to regurgitate a meal, then morphed into greeting gesture/a way to obtain information also, affiliative/attention seeking behavior) and it should gradually subside between using a bit of management and sometimes, a strong reaction from us may work in some cases.

Management-wise this could mean: 

-Keeping your face at a distance from your dog's face as much as possible. Don't sit on the floor with your dog or bend down too close to her face. Out of close sight/smell, out of mind. This can be easier said than done, as when we pet our dogs and love on them, we tend to want to have our faces close to them. Leaning a bit back though can help not evoke the behavior. 

-Keeping your mouth area as clean as possible. If our mouth area smells like a jar of peanut butter we recently ate, our dogs will be unable to resist licking our mouth area of course. And even if your dog was just planning to lick your mouth out of other motives, finding any tasty flavors along the way of course adds more reinforcement to it. 

Working on the behavior, these are just a few ideas and may have some trial and error testing to see what works best. 

-Rewarding alternate behaviors. This can work but mostly if it happens often enough or to particular triggers. We do this by recognizing which of our exact behaviors elicit the mouth licking behavior (leaning towards the dog, placing our face too close, sitting on the floor) and gradually exposing to these behaviors in a step-by-step incremental fashion while aiming to reward an alternate behavior of our choice or just plain non face-licking. For instance, we can lean a little forward and be super quick to click/treat for not facing licking, lean a little more , click treat for non-face licking, leaning more and for longer (increase latency between face exposure and click/treat) sitting on the floor- click/treat for non face licking. The goal being being able to have our face nearby and our dogs disregarding their impulse in hopes of earning a treat. 

-Stopping the interaction contingent upon the behavior. In other words, praise, pet and talk to your dog, but the moment she licks your mouth, abruptly stop, get up and leave. 

-Reacting strongly. This may or may not work. Depends on the dog. It might not work with dogs who are attention-seekers or who think what we do is always a game (and that includes even watching us get frustrated). It also shouldn't be done with dogs who are easily startled or frightened. You may also want to avoid doing this when other dogs are nearby so they don't think their own behaviors are part of equation. 

This worked for me with a dog who used to do this out of the blue. She was a repeat offender. Based on your description, I have a feel you are already doing this or something close to it. In any case, what I do is stop petting abruptly and react strongly by saying 'yuck! or "bleh!" loudly and start spitting loudly with my mouth closed sort of like when one is spitting a hair or something difficult to remove from the mouth. The dog in question looked at me sort of like a bit shocked as if thinking "Jeez, what did I do wrong?" After two or more trials, the behavior decreased as she must have gotten the message that "Adrienne must really not like being French Kissed!"

Tip: If a dog is an attention seeker, this reaction can be added to the prior tip and therefore we can react strongly and then leave. 

I hope this helps, it's not easy when behaviors like these happen randomly and out of the blue and we can't find a common culprit that evokes it. I agree, it's much easier when they continuously lick.