Human pup play has people adopting dog like behaviours and traits, and in the context of BDSM and fetish play this is a fairly safe and sound practice. For a few rare human beings, because of extreme circumstances, they have had no choice but to adopt lupine and canine like behaviours to survive. These are the very rare cases of human children who have been separated and isolated from human society and forced to grow up with wolves. Many of the stories of children raised by wolves are fabrications, yet from a few legitimate cases we can learn something about how humans act at being a canine, or more properly a lupine, when they must. By analysing some of the common traits to all those legitimate cases we can perhaps shed light on what can be some universally adopted human pup play behaviours. So we define the common traits and then examine how they might be relevant to human pup play.
It is important to note I am not an anthropologist, nor am I claiming the conclusions presented here are to be seen as anything other than speculative thought - a musing on human pup play and its comparison to those unfortunate children raised in the wild. In no way do I advocate raising a person with dogs or wolves and bereft of human love and care. The damage these victims have suffered takes a lifetime to repair, and we all should feel compassion for the wild raised.
The most immediately noticeable trait that humans raised by wolves showed was that they tended to walk on all fours. Not on their knees, rather on their feet and hands. Behaving like a quadruped obviously helped them integrate into wolf packs. For human pup play we can see the benefit of being on all fours as it clearly delineates the human from the pup. A man standing upright might be in pupspace in his head, but a man on all fours looking up art his owner is clearly wanting to be in pupspace.
Wild raised humans would eat and drink from a plate or bowl on the floor, but only after smelling it. Given they preferred to be on all fours it is no surprise that they eat from the floor and not a table. What is relevant is the smelling of food before eating. Humans raised by wolves would sniff everything they were given, food or not. The use of smell as a primary sense by canines and lupines is well known, and we can reasonably conclude that scent and using the sense of smell have to be front and centre in human pup play. Human sight is very well developed, and we rely on our visual and audio perception to construct most of our sensual reality. Placing a focus on scent and making an effort at scent play will help define pup behaviour and creating a pup thinking created sensual reality. Sniffing is under utilised, and often socially frowned upon, but it really helps show a human is in pup mode.
Those humans raised by wolves and away from human contact showed a lot of aggression and hostility, alternating that with suspicion and fear. When frightened, they would back away snarling, showing teeth like a wolf. Anyone approaching these wolf raised was greeted with growling; coming close when they ate meant snarling and even snapping of the jaw occurred. This aggressive behaviour no doubt worked in the context of a wolf pack in the wild.
A human pup should never need to try and bite anyone like a wolf does. It's a dangerously anti-social behaviour, and very unsafe in sensual of sexual play. The sounds of growling and snarling are very obviously non human behaviour, and well placed in pup play. The bestial sounds remind all involved of the animal side of human pup play. Yet aggressive postures and behaviours need to be trained, used in moderation, and clearly defined for what purpose they serve. Threatening and hostile behaviour can be erotic, but both Owner and pup need to use those behaviours wisely and with safeguards. At the end of the day, the essential fact remains - human pup play is meant to be fun, not a battle for survival every moment.
A lot of snarling and growling by wolves involves struggles for dominance within the pack. Wolves are actually a quiet animal, mostly silent when travelling or hunting - for obvious reasons. Their cousins, canines, tend to be noisier, yet they can provide us better ways to express the struggle for dominance. It is better to look to them as they have lived with us humans for millennia and adopting wolf behaviour for dominance is dangerous for human pup play.
Our canine companions attempt to dominate us in far more subtle ways. They stare directly at us, they lean against us, they try to push us. Even a behaviour as human friendly as putting their doggy paw on our knee is actually a canine asserting dominance. These subtle dominance gestures, along with growls, are supportive of fun and sensual pleasure in human pup play rather than the possible physical assaulting and emotionally hostile behaviour of wolves.
In conclusion, we can remember that the very few humans raised by wolves have not led idyllic lives of pleasure. Living in the wild left them physically damaged, and emotionally scarred. The experience of living in a wolf pack conditioned them, forced them, to adopt some behaviours but they could not fully be themselves as humans. Each case is slightly different, but we can see from those few common traits they all shared a similarity to adopted behaviour in human pup play. We can conclude that posture, scent, and behaviour are paramount to human pup play - but what is essential to human pup play remains up to every pup and Owner. No matter what you chose to do, training and learning to be a human pup is safe to do in the privacy of your own home or with others, but not in the wild. We can leave that for the real wild animals.