After she drinks water, her entire face is all wet and she drips water all over the floor. She’s only 6 months old–is there some way to train her to be less of a slob?
She’s a dog. Dog’s are slobs.
What breed of dog? Some dogs are naturally a bit sloppy drinking just because of the anatomy of their mouth and jowls - and it’s not exactly correlated to size - A large spaniel may be about the same size as a border collie, but the spaniel has a looser mouth and cheeks, so tends to make more mess and splatter when drinking.
You could try a deeper bowl so the dog has to put more of its face further inside to drink.
Can’t help you, but I have a similar anecdote to share. Back when I had my cat Toby, he would dip his paw into the water bowl and lick the water off of his paw. We called him the Toe-Dipper. Every couple of days we’d have to wash out the water bowl to remove the remnants of his grey fur. He was a real sweetheart, though; it was worth it.
My dog has a drinking problem. He will drink as much water as he has access to then he’ll wander away from the bowl and throw up a slimy puddle. The solution was to give him ice instead.
You could try ice cubes and see if she’ll accept that option and hopefully not make as big a mess.
She’s a golden retriever, but our last dog was also a golden and wasn’t a sloppy drinker. The difference (I’m hoping) is that we acquired our former dog when she was an adult and we got this one as a puppy. So I’m hoping someone will tell me that it’s a puppy thing and she’ll grow out of it.
One of our cats drinks water like this too!
Ok you win. Your dog has a worse drinking problem than mine. I’ve given her ice cubes before, but in addition to water, not instead of water. She plays with them and then I find little puddles of water all over. Might be different if ice was her only water. I’ll give it a shot.
Ha! I read the OP and thought “probably a retriever…”
I had a golden retriever that I raised from a baby. She was a messy drinker her whole life. I am almost positive she got her bad habits from her puppy class, where there was a chocolate lab who liked to lie down next to the water bowl and stick his snout all the way in and just play around. I swear by the time we got done with that class, she was doing it too.
Maybe fill her bowl less? So it’s not so tempting to go “swimming” in it?
Goldens are just the fucking best, tho. Hard to get mad at such a sweetie making a mess 
Yep! A buddy of mine breeds Goldens. Every so often we’ll stop to visit, and end up sitting on the floor with ten or more six week old pups swarming us. Nothing like it! 
There are plenty of dishes designed specifically to reduce mess. Here is one design. search “messy dog water dish”.
Our pug (4 y/o) will dribble her way away from the water dish. I’ve got it sitting on a small towel, but her drips go beyond the towel. Personally, I think it’s deliberate. She’s just a brat. 
You know what she did when I had the brilliant idea to put a place mat under her food and water bowls? She thought, hmmm what’s THIS new toy & she bit the corner of the placemat & ran with it sending food and water all over my hardwood floor :smack:
She’s a total pain in the ass, but we love her. I’ll look into Kayaker’s messy water bowl idea.
Don’t you know? The best water is always at the BOTTOM of the bowl!
My dogs have done this for years. Frankly, the only way we solved the problem was to just have them drink out of the sink
Send that dog back to charm school. How gauche!
Our new dog (the blind Chocolate English Lab) always leaves the bowl with a mouth full of water, which he then dribbles all over the floor. We have a mat under the bowl which helps, but he still makes a huge mess.
But is he a sloppy drunk?
Short answer is No, nothing can be done. Dogs are gross.
Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] has a nice bowl of fresh water in the kitchen, which he studiously ignores. What he wants is to wait for me to go into the bathroom, and then jump into the tub and Sit Nicely looking adorable until I turn on the bath tap so he can drink from that. I have to turn the stream on high enough that he doesn’t swallow a lot of air, because that leads to retching and gagging and barfing up water. Then he can go wipe his face off on the bedsheets.
At least he’s house trained.
Regards,
Shodan
We used to have an Irish Setter that would basically dunk half of his ears in the bowl when he drank, and then leave two little trails of water halfway through the house when he walked away. It was part of his charm.
Yes dogs are gross.
So let’s talk about cats for a minute.
For verily, I say unto thee…there are many ways to drink from a faucet.
But not many of us would do it this way.
(it’s a cat dunking its head …looking stupid…and .very funny.)
Our Luna has a “drinking problem.” She’s not dribbly so much as…enthusiastic. When she realizes we’re going outside, she runs to the water bowl and drinks fast, with an energetic little flip of her head on each stroke of the tongue, building up waves sloshing back and forth in the bowl.
And then she keep drinking.
For ridiculous lengths of time.
Sometimes I’ll get my phone out and read the Dope for a while, with the leash in my hand, trying to wait her out. Occasionally I’ve had to stop her and take the water away, so she won’t die of hyponatremia or pop like that bird in Shrek.
Luna isn’t a puppy – she’s believed to be somewhere a few months past three. But she’s young at heart, and she throws herself at life like that, all-out. So we just use a high-sided water bowl and monitor her time spent chugging.
There are water bowls designed specifically to keep ears dry (“Spaniel Bowls”). People also use “snoods” to keep the ears dry.
Our older, slender-snouted border collies are very delicate, polite drinkers.
The yeller lab and two young pitties? Total slobs! When she was younger the lab would try to go swimming in her water bowl
We’ve mitigated some of the mess with a very deep and heavy mixing bowl that is filled about halfway and set on an absorbent rug (it’s a really cute rug shaped like a bone that we got from Amazon).