My wonderful labrador - Henry - has suckled on a soft toy dog (which I refer to as "bed friend") for as long as I can remember. This behaviour seems to relax him as he wraps his front paws around the back leg of this soft toy and then suckles on the leg while looking sleepy/sedated. I've never known a labrador to do this before as I grew up with two labradors and had one of my own before Henry came into my life - does your lab suckle? I'm not sure whether it's a trait that he has had to relax and perhaps dates back to when he was a puppy suckling on his mothers milk when he was born?
Oh how sweet, I should imagine that it's a habit that he finds comforting and borne from his puppy days. Cassie who is rising 2 loves her feet and will often nibble, chew and suck a little bit on them. I've always thought it a leftover from her tiny puppy days. A bit like cats that still "knead" as it it is their mother. Henry does look wonderful!
Tatze sucks teddy’s nose. I have two teddies the same so that I can wash them in rotation. Note the lack of ears, she chewed them off when she was 7 months old but has never chewed the rest of the teddy at all.
took a photo last night of Henry suckling - sometimes if I try and take the soft toy from him he will move his hips so I think he's quite attached to it
My Caspar does this, too. It looks a bit like a baby sucking a dummy. My last Lab was a real soft toy cuddler but never sucked them. I think it is so cute!
Awww, bless'em. Funny things our dogs. Mind you, we have cats too and when our Jenny was a little kitten (now 14) she suckled our old lab BJ's elbow. She was a wee thing, BJ was a big old lad. She would crawl up over him when he was lying on his side, then latch on to his elbow and the noise was incredible, slurp, slurp. Our lovely old BJ would raise his head and look at her, but he never moved, would just look at us, sigh and lie back down. He was an adorable, gentle dog - epileptic too, dear, precious old friend. Ah, the memories
Yes, when I was a child my Dad brought a kitten home whose mother had been killed, she was a stray who had been looked after by his work colleagues, the kitten was too young to be without his mother and he used to suckle on our springer spaniel, he too was adorably gentle old boy. He even had bald patch where the kitten had suckled!
Cap (my boy that died at 15) would do the same thing. It was great because I could put him in our bed, give him his stuffed animal and he would settle down and then go right to sleep. Huckabee (14 months) just tears everything up in about an hour. I never had a dog that sucked on his toys before. One person told me it was because he was taken from him mom too soon but I know that was not true. I thought it was sweet
Yes, Finn does this too! I wondered if this is because Finn didn’t have a ‘mother’. She became very ill after giving birth. Finn is bottle fed the second day after birth....
