Face Nibbling: The Most Awkward Thing in the World

MEGAPOST!! Okay, since I haven’t posted in awhile, I’m going to be posting a bunch in the next few days to assuage my guilt. I hope you like reading, because there’s a lot of that involved in the following post. There are pictures (some of which are my own art) and a video, too! I plan to update at least once a week from now on (not including the next few days in which there will be a profusion of postings). Life has been a little chaotic the past couple weeks but I’m getting back on track now.

I am currently on my second job-search-related visit to Columbus (first one October 24-November 19; this one December 5-12), staying with Z in his apartment. I will be back in Atlanta with the fam (and friends) for Mom’s birthday and Christmas. Maybe I can convince someone to give me a super cool (aka paid and experience-garnering) job in Columbus for a Christmas present?? PLEASE?!?!

Some Dogs

This little butthead dog keeps howling next door. He can’t even be bothered to sound like a proper dog. I think it’s some sort of little King Charles or other type of froo-froo nonsense. I saw it one time when it ran out on the neighbor’s balcony and barked at me. It was bigger than a King Charles but it had the same fur, face, and pattern. Maybe it’s a mutt. I greatly prefer medium or large breed dogs who are not ridiculous fuzzballs with smooshed faces and 15 billion health issues from inbreeding. When I get my own place, a job, and enough steady money to do so, I will get either a primitive breed (such as New Guinea Singing Dog), a wolfdog (or wolf-like if Columbus doesn’t like wolfdogs), or a German Shepherd.

Go be a weirdo like me and learn more about this New Guinea Singing Dog at the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society's official website! Photo courtesy of RareBreed Network (notice my journalism skills at photo credits).

You could say I’m a dog enthusiast. I research dog breeds for fun. AMONG OTHER THINGS. I also play video games, read urban fantasy (it's a real genre, involving fantastical elements such as magic, werewolves, vampires, etc. in our contemporary world, though sometimes with some slight variations), hang out with my family and friends and have a pretty awesome boyfriend. My goals include: getting a job having to do with writing, editing, and me getting money and getting lots of that cool experience stuff that will help me level up to level 85 and complete all the main story quests. For all the people who were not raised with video games or had a brief college flirtation with WoW which had to end because it wasn’t good for that socialization thing (even though I still got all my school work done), this means that I aspire to garner experience sufficient to become the ultimate editor-in-chief or senior editor or managing editor or any translatable position which involves me being the supreme god of editing. Why do I want this? Because I love writing and reading and learning how to better myself so I can become a very useful human being that does great things in her life.


So. My family has always owned dogs. Currently, we have three females--two 1.5 year-old sister yellow labs with nearly white coats who could be called smart if they bothered to listen to commands and if they didn’t make a habit of coming up with new destructive habits to make us want to strangle them. Example: going into my room and peeing on the carpet, for no reason other than that no one is watching and it's a fun game they haven't tried yet. A second example: going outside and not coming when we say “come” and making us chase them down to the bushes where they have found feces of some sort or are eating poisonous mushrooms or toxic berries. Another example: the undiscriminating consumption of feces wherever they can find it, no matter the age or...form of the excrement. An additional example: running up and down the back stairs barking, barking out the window at people and dogs in their own backyards and not at all on our property, barking at other dogs barking, barking at dogs barking on tv, barking at me, barking at each other, barking at nothing, and generally becoming a crazed run-around-and-bark-together team which cannot be stopped unless I chase after them and yell threats at them until they decide it’s a good idea to go to their beds and be quiet for awhile and generally make me feel like a horrible dog owner with their slinking and pitiful looks. The third dog is Jessie, an eight-year-old black lab with a serious fetching obsession and a phobia of vaguely tight or strange-shaped places, air vents, vacuum cleaners, the laundry room, the behind-the-door area, hallways, sharp bends in hallways, etc.).

 Classic triangular composition, a la Raphael. Great job, dogs.

Roxie (front) and Zoe often enjoy lying in the same position, probably because "they share a brain" (Mom) (notice my awesome MLA parenthetical citation skills).

The Face Nibbling

Jessie began the face-nibbling phenomenon with the sisters when they were puppies. For those whose dogs aren’t freaks who make out all the time, face-nibbling is this thing dogs do to each others’ muzzles (or eyeballs, in Roxie’s case) where they do that quick nibbling known as flea-biting. Supposedly it is a display of dominance, or, at least that was how it was originally meant to be used. However, the puppies (as the sisters are called) have turned it into some sort of weird game in which they lick Jessie’s face until she begins the face-nibbling ritual, for which the puppies line up in anticipation. Sometimes the dogs try to include me in the face-nibbling by leaning against me. I see this as either Roxie doing the “I’m blocking you from my human, Jessie. You are now trying to assert your dominance and claim her by nibbling my face” or simply a tactile attempt to include me in play I really don’t want to be a part of. Thanks, dogs, I actually just feel really awkward now because you’re nibbling and slobbering against my leg. The puppies seem to enjoy face-nibbling, as if it is a luxurious face massage. Zoe, the quieter, less dominant one who darts around a bunch, closes her eyes in what seems like bliss as her face is nibbled by Jessie. When Roxie tries to mimic the face-nibbling on Zoe, she tends to nibble the eyeball region, resulting in not so much bliss. Roxie, (or Roxie “Left-Eye,” as we call her because her left eye has a permanent dark tear stain for no good reason), is the more dominant, pushy one who demands to be petted and demands attention and climbs all her 65 pounds up in my lap and tries to eat my face if she decides she really needs some attention NOW. She’s the one who barks and vocalizes a lot. When Jessie nibbles Roxie’s face, Roxie “sings,” or, in layman’s terms, makes a bunch of melodic doggie moaning sounds. God knows why. Often times, the face nibbling includes profuse face licking, often with all three dogs involved. It usually begins with both the puppies licking Jessie’s face, and ends up with the licking and nibbling of Zoe and Roxie’s faces by Jessie. Sometimes Zoe feels the need to insert herself in the nibbling by standing over Roxie and Jessie if they are ground-nibbling. It’s...almost as disturbing as it sounds. Of course, both times I tried to film the dogs during nibbling, Zoe decided to intervene. I'll try to upload a video sans Zoe making things more awkward than they already are.

Sometimes I think Zoe has some social issues. If she were a person, she would be the awkward one. Occasionally I will be downstairs on my mom’s computer either wasting my life or trying to apply to jobs and make perfect cover letters, and I will hear some desperate-sounding play-noises (ie whining, yipping, generally sounds of a body rolling around on fabric and the eternally-fur-coated stone floors). I will walk over to the dog-bed area by the tv and see Zoe rolling around yipping and trying to entice the other two dogs to play. The other two dogs are typically either ignoring her or watching her with expressions, that, if they were as judgemental as I am, would say “What the hell are you doing you freak.”


I feel a little bad for Zoe. Her antics, which could also be referred to as desperate attempts to incite play, sometimes remind me of my childhood as the child who pretended to be a wolf and thought it was normal to watch lion documentaries with your friends and pretend to be fantastical creatures (or wolves) with them. Apparently this kind of play was frowned upon by the other children. Somehow I still ended up with friends, though. Great job!

At least I can draw really cool werewolves now! Thanks, childhood fixations! COOL ART (c) ME!!

Z presented me with a post-it that said "Kate sux" (his version of a playful flirtation). I made it better with a scary grinning werewolf.

 So, when I get a dog with Z, it has to be super smart and not do dumb things like eat its own poop or try to kill itself by confronting snakes or running up and barking at bears or deer or something. It should also be able to learn how roads and cars are bad. The puppies still think that cars are something to run up and bark at while in motion because they make big scary machine sounds and also contain those super cool people that are supposedly part of the “pack”...though I don’t know how I could ever truly be a part of said pack without participating in the complex ritual of face nibbling.

Also, if you want to read a truly hilarious post about dogs, check out Hyperbole and a Half.