and also the dog being held back tightly against his owner by the collar, which therefore is not likely to be read as "pressing against his owner" so much as "being forcibly restrained from jumping/climbing on the interview woman".

Yeah...an important part of the context was that the dog was basically trapped.

On the surface (which is as far as most people ever see) I saw the dog licking towards the woman & licking her hands (which will be interpreted by most as "kissing", esp when it's directed AT a person instead of when the dog is sitting off by itself)

I think that the dog did send some mixed signals. But the reason for this was that the dog didn't really want conflict-the dog wasn't so much saying "leave me alone, I want nothing to do with you!" but was rather saying "Look, I'm happy to meet you, but the way you're going about it is intrusive and overwhelming, so could you please back off a little bit, and then maybe we can get to know each other in a calmer slower way so I feel more safe?"

Since the message was so complex, the signals were also complex. The requests for space were mixed with social appeasement (because the dog would have been willing to make friends if he'd been given more space and less overwhelming attention). He kind of wanted to be friendly...but was overwhelmed at the same time. And the humans only heard half the message.

Now...I wanted to give examples of another (bully family) dogs that really is happy to be with this person on TV.

In this video here however...we have a dog that is 100% happy to be where he is. Just pure affectionate happiness. No mixed messages. A big part of what is happening in this case, is the dog is setting the tone; he's not being trapped into anything (you'll see what I mean).