It’s that time of year when we all can’t wait to get outside. Warm summer days and nights are perfect for festivals, patios, community movie nights, pop-up markets, and dog parks with our beloved pets. Before planning our summer activities, it’s important to consider our dogs’ communication cues to ensure they enjoy the outings as much as we do. New environments can be intimidating, so assessing our dogs’ body language is crucial to setting them up for a good time.
Understanding dog body language also keeps us safe around unknown dogs. You’ll likely encounter many dogs out with their guardians, and sometimes dogs roaming without supervision. Being able to tell if an unknown dog is relaxed or uncomfortable helps us decide whether to interact or let our dogs do so. This skill is especially useful in off-leash dog parks and when passing other dogs on the sidewalk.
Additionally, assessing dog body language can provide valuable lead time if a loose dog approaches. Recognizing signs of over-arousal or aggression allows us to quickly act and avoid potential danger for ourselves and our dogs.
Dogs communicate primarily by body language cues. Canine body language provides us with valuable information that can help us understand how the dog may be feeling. Behaviour related to communication cues can be affiliative (friendly), fearful, anxious, aroused or agonistic (combative or ready for conflict). To determine what kind of behaviour you might encounter from an unknown dog, you can assess a number of body language cues that give us insight into how that dog may react. Dogs also often display a number of body language cues as they escalate up what is referred to as the ladder of aggression. It’s important to note that dogs portraying fearful body language cues may escalate to aggression if they feel they have no recourse to escape the environment or the trigger that is causing them fear.
When we learn what signals tell us dogs are scared, uncomfortable or feeling threatened, it provides us with the opportunity to change the way we are interacting with them or to move them to a different environment, which may prevent them from feeling like they have to escalate to get their message across. Often, with unknown dogs demonstrating body language cues of discomfort, choosing to avoid interaction, avoiding direct eye contact and giving them lots of space will de-escalate the situation and confrontation will be avoided.
Of course, when it comes to our own dogs, we also want to be sure that they are enjoying the experience as much as we are. Assessing body language cues throughout the day allows us to cut an outing short if we determine that our dog is not feeling comfortable in the situation. When assessing dog body language, we generally look at the dog’s eyes, ears, tail placement and movement, mouth and general posture or weight distribution.
Relaxed and happy dogs show soft, almond shaped or slightly squinting eyes, loose ears, relaxed neutral tails or mid-carriage wagging including helicopter type motions with the tail, open relaxed mouths with lolling tongues, evenly distributed weight and a general relaxation of their muscles.
On the other hand, dogs feeling aroused or escalating to aggression demonstrate hard stares, closed, tight mouths, tails carried high often accompanied by a “rattlesnake-like” wagging of the tip, erect, tense ears, and a forward leaning and stiff posture.
Anxious dogs can display fussing, fidgeting or fawning behaviour which can quickly escalate to arousal or even aggression. Dogs who worry at their leash, perform full body shakes when not wet, pant excessively when not hot, can’t seem to sit still, show tense musculature or overly submissive behaviour combined with the former are likely feeling anxiety.
Fearful dogs often have pinned back ears, wide, rounded eyes with the sclera (whites) showing, hunched or crouched posture and tenseness of the mouth and generally musculature. They often lift one front leg and avert their head to avoid interaction. They may appear to have a wide, tight “grin” sometimes referred to as rictus grin or clown grin and will often show out of context panting.
What do we do when we encounter a dog who is showing signs of discomfort or when our own dog starts to show signs of discomfort? For our own dogs, assessing the environment and possibly cutting the outing short or choosing a more quiet, sedate area to enjoy the day is a good place to start and then you can reassess to see if your dog is feeling better. For unknown dogs, the best course of action is to create space and avoid interactions. If a dog appears aggressive, move to a space where you can put a barrier between you and the dog.
Recently, Toronto Humane Society created an online, interactive course called the Pet Parent Guide to Dog Guardianship in which body language interpretation is discussed at some length.
By understanding what our dogs and the dogs we encounter are communicating without words, we can set them up for success. This means recognizing when they are comfortable and when they are not, and then adjusting their environment and our actions accordingly.
The Pet Parent Guide to Dog Guardianship course is available at www.torontohumanesociety.com/petparentpreparationcourses
This article was originally published in Toronto Humane Society’s quarterly magazine, Animal Talk. The full digital copy of this magazine can be found online on Issuu.
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