Haiku by Dog: Tongue
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Today’s haiku is by Lilah.
It’s a marvelous thing, a dog tongue.
It can cover you with sweet, wet kisses.
It can reach all the way over the nose to get that piece of (tasty) shmutz off the top of a snout.
It can hang out while a dog is panting, providing a wet surface area to help cool off an overheated pup.
But why does such an incredible anatomical instrument seem to be so inefficient when it comes to drinking water, shlorbbing it all over your recently mopped floor?
How do dog’s drink?
Scientists at Virginia Tech College of Engineering set out to learn how dogs drink, and found that it’s an interesting feat of biomechanics. Using slow motion cameras and scientific models, they discovered that dogs don’t drink by scooping up liquid with an upwardly curved tongue. Instead, they slam their tongues into the water and retract them so fast that they create a column of water, which they then snap up; they’re biting a cylinder of water.
During the process the tongue is curved down toward the jaw, not up toward the nose. Some water is carried up in the backwards curve of the tongue, but much of it winds up splooshing into the dog’s mouth or raining back down into the bowl — or on your clean floor.
According to David Hu, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and biology at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, who was not involved in the research, “When we drink, it is basically at a steady speed, but dogs are accelerating their tongues to between 2 Gs and 4 Gs. The dog moves its tongue at a higher acceleration than a rocket.”
So there you have it folks. Dog tongues are miracles of creative engineering.
And they’re still great for shlorbby kisses.
What do you like best about dog tongues?
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- Haiku by Dog: Perfect
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- Text from Dog: Dog got your tongue?
- My dogs have a drinking problem
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Mom has seen some slow motion videos of both dogs and cats drinking. Very interesting. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
We’re going to try to do some slow motion video of our own one day. Just for funsies.
Haha Yes we always laugh over Daisy’s long tongue as opposed to her short little nose – and when she wants that tongue to reach something yummy that’s out of her range, she sends it out in lengths we couldn’t even imagine she has! We call that “aardvark tongue” lol. But our favorite is when she sleeps with the tip of her tongue hanging out – I’m going to put a pic of that up on the blog…as soon as I get a few minutes!
“Aardvark tongue.” That’s great! I love it!
tongue stux to lite pole
Christmas Story moovee time
that kid waz sillee ♥♥♥
One of my favorite moments in the movie. “Thhstuck!”
My mom isn’t real into the big slobbery kisses, but she loves the hugs we give. We love getting our tongues on anyone we can with our kisses. I think humans pretend they don’t like it, but they really do.
I think you’re absolutely right. How could humans not enjoy those sweet slobbery affections?
With a tongue like that you really don’t need thumbs do you?
You may be right!
Very interesting post ! The length of your tongue is pretty impressive ! Purrs
All the way up and over the nose, right?!
Our tongues can touch our noses, but hot as good as that!
Yeah, we were pretty impressed with that tongue ourselves.