[yorkietalkjilly]

From so much of what I've read from dozens of dog experts a lot of this is considered vestigial behavior starting with the wild feeding program of wolves and canines and they are born knowing that adults feed and give them needed and wanted attention from jumping up to reach the lips to lick them. Other dogs' and our mouths are also filled with scent and give the dog lots of information about us, so they do this to learn about others. It carries over to even grown dogs, seeking to curry favor with its pack leaders and stronger adults and scent their muzzles up close for recent activity and that behaving in this manner can keep them safe and informed. It's common for puppies to do this and the less secure a puppy, the more they tend to do it as they want and need more assurance from their pack leader. Older dogs, even 110 lb. dogs, will jump up on people to try to get to their lips to lick and greet them and start to curry favor as that person enters their home.

When we first get puppies, we train them to kiss and lick us by holding their faces right up to ours and kiss and let them lick us, their paws on our necks and faces and we lie on the floor and call them right up to us to keep on doing this or lift them up and kiss them. We've trained them well! They just want to keep those initial good times going that we train into them from the first greeting.

With a young puppy, you might handle it a couple of ways and it won't be fixed in a couple of weeks as it's genetic to do this and we've embellished on nature by our training from the time we first met them.

You could immediately stand up and walk out of the room when the puppy starts it, say "uh oh" and physically remove her off of you, put her into a sitting position and hold your hand in front of her face in the "Halt!" position and locking eyes with her until she quietens over and over and over until she begins to learn what inevitably will happen when she does this. Thirdly, you could train her to sit and after a greeting has lasted long enough, have her sit on request. Always quietly reward and praise her, smile. Keep it low key as she's already excited.

The very best way to get a handle on any of these early little misbehaviors is to start now in training her in very short basic obedience for 3 - 5 minutes 3 times a day and get her used to impulse control and obeying your requests for a positive reward. It will begin to teach her to respect you, look to you for leadership and guidance and to learn by rote to do what you request. It has a wonderful cumulative effect and in time, dogs learn your words for "don't do that", "stop it", cease and desist, lol, and your body attitude, facial expressions when you are displeased and they learn to watch for your reactions and stop behavior you don't like, in time before you even form the words. They are not perfect and get too excited sometimes and forget, etc., but in the main, a well-trained puppy in basic obedience with a loving and patient teacher who keeps the lessons refreshed and fun, patient and very rewarding, will be a dog you will LOVE having for a pet because they know you so well and want to keep you happy. You can reshape almost any bad behavior with repetitive, positive-reinforcement training of a dog to teach it simple basics in order to learn how to control itself and respond to you in every way 99% of the time. That 1% they don't is what keeps having a dog so interesting and challenging and mostly so much fun.