"Puppy" behaviours in adult dog...

[bendyfoot]

Just curious about something. I was watching "at the end of my leash" last week, and the couple had two dogs, a five-ish year old and a 6 month old pup. The pup was constantly wanting to be near the older dog, and the trainer pointed out that the way the pup was always putting his muzzle at the older dog's ears, eyes and mouth, was a sign that the pup had been separated from his mother too early and missed out on important socialization/learning.

Jaida does this all the time with Gracie (the muzzle to muzzle/ears/eyes thing), and it's very puppyish and "cute" looking (eyes rolling, ears back). I always thought of it simply as very submissive gestures (especially since it usually makes Gracie put on her snarly coyote face - but she never acts aggressively towards Jaida, just makes faces). Now Jaida was not removed from her mother until she was 12 weeks old, but she was competing with 10 littermates, and she was the runt (and obviously her leg deformity), and it was a horrible environment, so who knows what kind of interactions she got with her mother.

All this to get to the question: does this have any implications for her training/trainability or socialization in the long run?

[luckypenny]

Ava did this with Lucky incessantly when she first joined our family and she's about 3-3 1/2 years old. After 15 minutes or so of getting his mouth and ears soaking wet, he's let her know he'd had enough. She still tries every now and then but he lets her know when to stop.

Although she's quite obsessed with him much of the time, she's otherwise a well-rounded dog and extremely social with strangers. I don't think that for whatevr reason Jaida is doing it as well, that it will affect her training and/or socialization.

[Ford Girl]

I agree, not sure if it affects training or anything really? Maybe, if anything, it might be insecurity...cuz it's like attention getting behavior...just thinking out loud here, it's how it appears to me, I really don't know...

I call it sucking up, Dazy does this to us if she's in a cuddly mood and we sit on the floor, like she can't get close enough she jams her snout in our ears, neck..face...while wiggling, so close she almost sits on us..and I've seen her do it to older male dogs...if it doesn't work she lay down belly up...

Might not be the same thing as you see...but it is cute and puppyish...like she's flirting...

[bendyfoot]

It is really cute, and she really only does it to that extreme with Gracie...and yeah, she's all wiggly and spazzy while she does it, and Gracie just does the coyote face back at her...but she doesn't really mean it because she always ends up licking Jaida after a few minutes (she just has to try to look tough) :-)