The Dog Present Themselves: Canine Language and Communication

For species living together as a pack, good communication is vital in order to survive. It is important for teamwork during hunting, bringing up offspring, and last but not least to maintain peace and avoid conflict within the pack. Conflicts can be dangerous, causing damage, leading to a weakening of the pack and decreasing their chances of survival. Wolves and dogs have developed remarkable ways of communicating, making them able to avoid or stop conflicts that may occur. ⁽¹⁾ 

A dog’s world in based on sensations from sight, smell, vocalization and hearing. ⁽²⁾ They leave messages of urine as a way of communicating, telling other dogs that this is their territory, or letting them know that they are in heat and ready to mate. A dog’s sense of smell and ability of hearing exceeds a human’s by miles, making it almost impossible for us to pick up any of their scented messages. However, dogs are also, in many cases, extremely vary of changes in behaviour and can detect tiny details and swift signals, making some of them experts at reading body language. Together with their other senses, dogs use this system of body language and signals as means of communications between themselves, and it is therefore naturally that they will try to communicate with other species in the same way, including humans.

Turid Rugaas, a Norwegian dog trainer and behaviourist studying canine social interaction, call some of these gestures calming signals, as they in many occasions are used to avoid conflict and sticky situations. According to Rugaas, there are about 30 signals or more, used as communication between dogs as their universal language. ⁽³⁾ Dogs will also try to communicate with their humans in the same order, and learning how to understand these signals will make life a lot easier for both dogs and humans.

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Yawning is a typical example used by dogs as a calming signal. It can signify that the dog is, in one way or another, displeased with the situation. ⁽¹⁾⁽³⁾ Excessive use of your voice (remember, dogs have an exceptional sense of hearing!), loud noises, stress, feeling uncomfortable or threatened, are all situations that may conjure a yawn. In similar cases, a dog might turn its head away and even start licking its lips to show discomfort, tying to calm down the situation. Licking of the lips is known especially to be commonly used by black dogs, or dogs with a lot of hair covering their face, as they don’t have the same portrayal of facial mimics as other dogs.⁽³⁾

A dog turning its head away when you go over to greet it, might mean that you have appeared too abruptly, making it feel insecure or even threatened.⁽³⁾ This is often typical when greeting an unknown dog for the first time; walking straight over to it and even standing or leaning over it, making it feel uncertain or threatened by your position. ⁽⁴⁾ One might therefore under these circumstances see the dog turn its head down or away, even turn its whole body, letting you known that you have come too close too quickly. It is therefore always advised to walk toward a dog from the side, instead of heading straight on, before crouching down by its side, letting it greet you first through sniffing before attempting to touch or stroke it. ⁽³⁾

 A sudden sniffing of the ground or surroundings, or abrupt scratching are also typical calming signals, and can, together with yawning and licking, be called “displacement behaviours”, where the dog seems to suddenly find other stuff to do to calm and avoid the situation.⁽³⁾⁽⁵⁾ Repeatedly ignoring these signals can turn into potentially dangerous situations; dogs who are seldom socialised with other dogs can end up loosing their language, leading to misunderstandings and possible conflicts when meeting other dogs. Conflicts can also occur between dog and human, were a dogs many attempts on calming or warning a human to stay away simply doesn’t work, sometimes forcing dogs to resort to aggressive behaviour such as snarling or even biting. Situations like these are of course something one would want to avoid at any cost, revealing how important it is to respect animals and their specific language or other means of communication.

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 It is highly important when reading a dogs body language and signals that they are done some by looking at the body language and expressions as a whole, as signals one normally would interpret as friendly could mean something totally different when taken out of context and not being red as a whole together with other signs of communication or body language.

When you have learned some of the basic forms of body language used by dogs, you will grow more and more aware of them, even using them yourself to calm your dog down, in situations of stress or excitement.

Learning the different ways of how your dog is trying to communicate with you is a crucial step in maintaining a healthy and peaceful relationship. After all, you have in most cases chosen to bring the dog inside your house, making it a part of your family, meaning that you should treat it and its individual needs with respect.

References

(1) http://www.doglistener.co.uk/language/language_canine.shtml

(2) http://puppies.about.com/od/BehaviorProblems/a/Dog-Language-How-Dogs-Communicate.htm

(3) On Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas. Dogwise    Publishing, 2005

(4) http://puppies.about.com/od/BehaviorProblems/a/How-To-Talk-To-Puppies.htm

(5) http://www.dogspelledforward.com/canine-body-postures/