On a recent trip to Washington D.C., my wife and I stopped in at a dog deli to pick up some treats for our pooch. The owner, it turned out, owned a greyhound as well and brought him out to meet us. I was crouched down and calling him over. He was slowly walking up and wagging his tail when he smiled at me. If you’ve never seen this before (and I hadn’t), it’s not a reassuring sight.
Suffice it to say that I almost fell over on my ass when he did it. I understand that smiling is uncommon but not unheard of in dogs. Has anyone else had a dog that does this?
When I was young, my family had a black lab/German shorthaired pointer mix who would smile. It was much less imposing than the one pictured, though, she’d pull the corners of her mouth way up and a little open, and her front lip would still mostly be covering her teeth. She’d also be wagging her tail so hard I thought her butt might fall off.
My golden does the same thing as the one brachyrhynchos mentioned, I think it must be the breed.
I had a friend who had a hound we called Smiley, that dog was wonderful, if she saw someone she knew she woudl run up with this huge grin on her face and her whole body wagging.
Odd how many Golden Retrievers are showing up doing this. My best friend next door had one when I was growing up and she was the most normal dog in the world.
My parents’ lab mix smiles when she gets excited. Her lips pull up an back, and she looks almost like she’s snarling, except for the fact that her whole ass is wagging, and she’s leaping around sneezing her head off. The only other dog I’ve ever known who does this is lab mix. She doesn’t do it to the extent Thumper does, but she does do it sometimes. It’s kind of strange, though; the only two dogs I’ve known to exhibit this behavior look almost exactly alike, aside from the ravages of age. In fact, that’s how Dolly the Vicious Attack Hound got her name. (Yes, my dad named my dog after a sheep.)
A friend of mine in high school had a golden lab/beagle mix that smiled. It was weird! To reiterate what others have said, it did look like she was snarling except she would be wagging her whole body. And sometimes making snorting noises.
Oh my god. I owned a male hound who used to smile, but it was a “closed mouth” smile. I think it helped that he had two little black marks at the edges of his mouth so when they curled up it really looked like he was smiling. He was the cutest little thing. RIP.
So what’s your opinion on the cause of the smiling? Learned behavior from watching their owners? Some obscure wolf-like behavior that I’ve never heard of?
Have any of your dogs ever smiled at another dog? How was it received?
I had a Carolina Dog who would do this occasionally, but I always got the impression it was just her fangs getting somewhat dry and making her flews stick to them. I.e., it wasn’t a muscle-controlled smile, it was just a flew getting caught up on her fang.
Sometimes it would happen on one side only. I called this her Elvis face.
There’s a dog out at my barn who smiles, and my brother had a pit bull who’d smile when he was happy. A smiling pit bull is not a reassuring sight if you aren’t comfortable with the breed.
I have a Coton de Tulear (little white fluffball) who smiles all the time. Her lips just kinda pull back, in what would be a grimace on a human face but that’s a sign of excitement on her. Heck, I’d rather she’d do that when excited than pee on a rug or something.
Yep, I’ve had a Golden smile at me too. It kind of freaked me out at first but then I thought it was cute. (Kind of like the porcupine in the Snuggle fabric softener commercial)
