08/27/2025
According to the Instagram page ExplainingNature, “when a dog drinks, it doesn’t scoop water like a ladle. Instead, it plunges the tip of its tongue into the water and quickly curls backward forming a kind of fast moving column of liquid that shouts up into the air-right into its mouth.
It happens in a split of a second. The dog relies on inertia and speed: as the tongue flicks backward and upward, water clings to it and rises in a column. Before gravity has a chance to pull it back down, the dog snaps its jaws shut around the splash. That’s why drinking looks so chaotic-it’s actually a precise, high speed motion repeated over and over.
Unlike humans, dogs don’t have the ability to create suction with their cheeks, so they rely on this “scoop and snap” method to hydrate. It’s messy but efficient. And once you realize what’s going on in slow motion, it becomes a little miracle of instinct and physics.”
So the next time you watch a dog drink and think what a mess, maybe remember the magical water ballet of physics being performed by your pup’s tongue.
