Dogs use their mouths for a lot of things — eating, drinking, cooling themselves, vocalizing, defending themselves, killing prey. They also use their mouths for discipline. Mama dogs move their pups around by picking them up with their mouths, and if a pup is doing something mama doesn’t like, mama will apply a little mouth discipline to straighten things out.

My own dogs have used mouth discipline. Once years ago I had to leave my dog Jesse with my parents when I was traveling. They fed her outside. A little neighbor girl had come over, as the neighborhood kids often did, and got a little too close to Jesse while she was eating. Jesse was not food aggressive around us, but apparently she didn’t want a stranger fiddling with her food. The report to me was that she had bitten the little girl in the face. Although I didn’t see what actually happened, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a bite. A dog will open its mouth, bare its teeth, and push its mouth towards another dog as a form of warning. They don’t close their jaws on the other dog, so to me it’s not actually a bite. I think that’s what happened with the little girl. Jesse pushed her fangs towards the girl and, unfortunately, made contact. It’s a distinction I wouldn’t expect a parent to make, but it’s a significant distinction to me. The little girl bled some, but was fine in the end. I think she even visited Jesse again after that.

On another occasion, Hugo, one of my doberman pinschers, and I were visiting a friend who had a mean and nasty dalmation. Hugo was interested in playing, but the dalmation only wanted to bite. The other dog kept biting and biting; Hugo kept trying to play. Eventually, Hugo had enough. He clamped down on the dalmation’s muzzle and held him for a few seconds. Then he let him go and tried to resume playing. Hugo couldn’t have said “Stop that!” any more clearly if he had said the actual words. It was just like a parent calming a rowdy child, only human parents don’t often use their teeth for that. In this case, the dalmation ended up with some small scars on its muzzle. He didn’t have any interest in playing or biting after that.

As I have said before, Zeke and Sam are best friends. They lie together at night and Sam follows Zeke around everywhere. On almost every walk, they roughhouse and play-fight. Sam is young and rambunctious; he dances around and dives in to bite Zeke on the cheek or back leg, his favorite target. Zeke generally just bites Sam on the neck. When they’re done, I don’t like to touch their heads because they are both usually wet with slobber. Even with all of that, there is usually no problem. Occasionally, however, Sam gets a little too rough. When that happens, Zeke yelps and runs after him. A few days ago Sam must have hurt Zeke more than the occasional hard bite. Zeke yelped, as usual, chased Sam, as usual, then pinned him to the pavement and held Sam’s muzzle in his jaws. That wasn’t usual. In this case, Zeke didn’t bite, and Sam didn’t get any scars. But Zeke’s meaning was clear.

Zeke held Sam for about three seconds, them let him go. They resumed their play almost immediately.