A physicist from Virginia Tech presented the results of his study explaining the differences between how dogs and cats drink water.
Sunny Jung, an assistant professor from Virginia Tech and study co-author, observed how cats and dogs drink water. Researchers placed cameras under the water to map the total surface area that the dogs' tongues splash when they drink, and then compared it to cats' tongues and those of smaller dogs, according to Discovery News.
Whenever dogs drink, their tongues smash the water surface and form water columns. They pull their tongues back in a quick manner, which then creates a backsplash. Cats, on the other hand, employ a plunge-and-pull process in which they place their tongues on the water's surface first, then rapidly withdraw it, creating a column of water underneath the cat's retracting tongue, according to Newswise.
In addition, researchers also observed that smaller dogs produce less backsplash when they drink compared to larger dogs. This observation suggests that the volume of water pulled by a dog is dependent on its size. Thus, the bigger the dog, the wetter the floor will be.
"When we started this project, we thought that dogs drink similarly to cats," Jung said in a press release. "But it turns out that it's different, because dogs smash their tongues on the water surface - they make lots of splashing - but a cat never does that."
Jung was referring to a 2010 study conducted by researchers from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discovered that cats pull water to their mouths repeatedly at a speed of 3 feet (1 meter) per second, enabling them to drink without penetrating the liquid, Reuters reported.
The results of the study were presented at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting held in San Francisco.
