Back several months ago, I stumbled upon an article about dog body language and "culture" - things like why dogs sit on your feet or lick your mouth. With the mouth licking, it comes from a pack behavior in wolves. When the alpha couple hunt, they bring meat back to the cubs... in their stomachs. The pups lick the adults' mouths, sometimes thrusting their snout into the corner of their mouth, to signal the adult to spit the meat back up for them to eat. (Yeah, gross, I know.) This behavior of dogs licking your mouth means that they recognize you as a senior pack member - someone who will provide you with food (even though Fluffy is expecting something more along the lines of you opening a can or sharing bits of your burger rather than you vomiting up elk).
When I read this article, I remembered reading Julie of the Wolves as a kid, and then later rereading it when I was a children's librarian. Julie, a teenage Native Alaskan, has run away from an arranged marriage and is somewhat adopted by a pack of wolves; she observes the behavior of the pups and manages to mimic them in such a way that the pack allows her to stay with them, and even to eat the food that they bring back to the den. Both times when I read this, I recall thinking that it was interesting behavior, but it didn't really occur to me that domestic dogs might have mannerisms relating to it.
Last Christmas, we took our dog, Athena, with us to Jason's parents'. It was her first time meeting their new dog, Gillie, who, while still a puppy, was also already close to double Athena's height and weight. We weren't really sure how Athena and Gillie would get along, what with Gillie being much larger and more energetic, and Athena being deaf (and therefore not privy to social cues related to sound, such as barking or growling). I ended up being amazed, not just that they got along (Athena is a good, sweet girl, and generally gets along well with other dogs), but that this much larger dog instantly trotted up to our little girl and started licking her mouth. Gillie apparently immediately recognized Athena as a senior member of the pack.
Thinking about the mouth licking, and bringing food back to the pups, I also thought about a story I wrote from the perspective of a wolf. The story is written in first-person present tense. In the story, the wolf narrates her plan to take her kill back to the den for her pup. When I wrote the story, I debated how to write this scene, and how true I should be to actual wolf behavior. I decided not to be entirely accurate - the wolf described intending to drag her kill back to the den rather than eating part of it to take back to her pup.
I made this choice for stylistic reasons, and not to alienate the reader. I figured most readers wouldn't be familiar with wolf behavior and would be so turned off by the idea of eating and the regurgitating the meat that they would lose what else was going on in the story.
I usually aim to write with accuracy. And every time I reread this story, it does bother me a litlte bit that I don't have the wolf's behavior exactly right. But, ultimately, I think the feel of the story is right - and apparently other people did, too, because it was published by the James Dickey Review. You can read it here ("Ashes," the fourth story on the page) if you're interested - and then you can decide if you think my change suited the story: https://www.iveyink.com/myworks
Hi, there! I recognize that you are a senior pack-member - do you have food for me?