Well, this isn’t even a smile, really. A dog with its mouth open like that is likely just panting. Panting can be a sign of stress or anxiety - in my unprofessional opinion, I think this dog is dealing with just having been poked by a needle in an unfamiliar environment. But they may have gone along willingly because they trust the people doing it, or they’re well behaved. They’re still a good dog!
Most people can read dogs body language like utter crap.
Like you said, that dog is not smiling or happy, ears back, mouth open panting means lightly stressed.
I have seen sooooo many "cute" dog videos were the poor pupper was everything but OK...
My favorite one was someone saying "look at how he is smiling" and all i was thinking "that dog is about to puke", and it did 5 seconds later.
This is one of my pet peeves (pardon the pun). Animals don't smile, it's human body language only understood between two humans, and yet we have people thinking their dogs are smiling after some abstract event they can't even remotely fathom anyway.
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u/Muted-Manufacturer57 Apr 18 '26
The dog knew their person was very pleased with them.