When Your Dog Licks Is It Submissive Behavior?

I am skeptical that licking is a submissive sign in my dog’s behavior

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When I Googled, “Why does my dog lick my feet,” I found several posts like this one:

One of the main reasons a dog will lick a person’s feet is to indicate their submissiveness to their master. More importantly it indicates their happiness in this role. By displaying this act of domesticity and submission, the dog may ensure its place in the family by accepting the social order of the home.

Me? The master? Obviously, Reggie, my Shih Tzu mix rescue dog, has not read any of those posts. While he does lick my feet if I allow it, neither Reggie nor I believe I am his master.

Reggie is big on rituals, especially at bedtime. It’s always the same. It begins when I say, “Let’s go to bed.” He runs to the treat box and sits. He waits for me to get a Milk-Bone. Then he heads for the bed, stopping every few feet to make sure I am on my way.

Then I get into bed, and he crawls over me to lie between my legs with his head at my toes. And he licks them before getting up and going to lie between my feet and my husband’s feet. He lies there for a while, and when we are settled and ready to fall asleep, he gets up and goes around the house, turning over all the…