A Scientific Look at How Dogs Drink Water
You might not look at your dog slurping and gulping water into his throat (and all over your floor) as an engineering marvel. But you might want to look again. A study out of Virginia Tech on the mechanics of dogs drinking water shows that what looks like a sloppy mess to us, is actually quite an interesting and complicated feat. Cats and dogs both have incomplete cheeks, which is something all predatory animals have in common. This is because, as predators, they need to be able to open their mouths extra wide to kill their prey. A dog’s lips go all the way around the mouth. As a result, they are unable to purse their lips and use their cheek muscles to make a vacuum in the mouth to draw water into the mouth. Sadly, no straws for dogs!
