There is more to sloppy dog slurping than meets the eye

A precise method underlies the sloppy madness of dog slurping, according to a new research.

Using photography and laboratory simulations, Virginia Tech researchers studied how dogs raise fluids into their mouths to drink. They discovered that sloppy-looking actions at the dog bowl are in fact high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dogs' ability to acquire fluids.

The scientists discovered that even though feline and canine mouths structurally are similar, their approaches to drinking are as different as cats and dogs.

Researcher Sunghwan "Sunny" Jung said that dog drinking is more acceleration driven using unsteady inertia to draw water upward in a column, where cats employ steady inertia.

"This was a basic science study to answer a question very little was known about what are the fundamental mechanics of how dogs drink?" said Sean Gart. "Cats tend be viewed as neater, dogs are messier, but dogs really have to accelerate their tongues to exploit the fluid dynamics of the water column."

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.