Dogs and humans love attention. Dogs love to be loved, looked at, played with and praised. Some dogs require more attention than others and some have been conditioned and trained to beg for attention. When I was a kid, I had a golden retriever named Sarah who would push her snout under my hand and insist that I pet her. She would stop at nothing to have me touching her, petting her, loving her and adoring her. I would always give in and pet her all the time, so the snout nudging continued and naturally the behavior increased. Oftentimes, a lot of 'bad behavior' is a result of a dog seeking attention. Instead of a casual, cute nudge of the nose, attention-seeking behavior might be displayed in ways that are often incorrectly interpreted as 'dominant' behavior. Pawing, jumping up, mouthing, barking etc., have been coined as being aggressive displays of dogs trying to be 'alpha dogs'. However, this is simply not the case.
