Dog Talk: How To Understand What Your Dog Is “Saying”: Part 2

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When your dog is talking, do you listen? Are you paying attention?

Barking is not the topic here, but rather, the way our dogs communicate to us and the world around them with the use of their body language, specifically the tail.

There are lots of different wags. Plain, ordinary, enthusiastic wagging means “I'm a friendly fella!” A slow wag is the nervous laugh of a dog who is embarrassed about something. A tail held high and wagged widely, instead of only slightly, means he wants to play. If he wiggles up to you after you have disciplined him, wagging his tail between his hind legs, he is saying he wants to make up and is sorry.

Most of a dog's nosing around is done for identification purposes. When he approaches another dog, the first thing he does is sniff him out to discover whether he is friend or foe. First he smells the rear; then he smells the face.

When your dog props his paws on your chest or shoulders, he is trying to get in position to smell your breath. He can tell whether it's you for sure, and what you've been eating that he might get some of!

You can often tell immediately whether a dog cares for your company by noticing the position of his lips. When he draws the corners of his lips forward, he is feeling distinctly antisocial. He may become aggressive and could attack, especially if he has drawn his lips open to show his teeth. However, when he pulls back horizontally so that he appears to be grinning, he is expressing his friendliness or submissiveness.

When he feels very submissive, he will smile like a simpleton. He looks like he's feeling silly and has lots of “waggle.” A few dogs are capable of the mimic grin, something they have learned from humans and display only to humans. They retract their lips to show their front teeth in a wide toothpaste smile.

A dog that uses those teeth to chew up your slippers may be telling you that he is unhappy. A chewing dog is a fretting dog. A pet that gets a lot of attention otherwise, but is left shut in the house alone all day will fret in this manner. When he is lonely and unhappy, and he wants something done – now – then he becomes like a hyperactive child. He's liable to chew up everything in the house eventually.

Dog Talk: How To Understand What Your Dog Is “Saying”: Part 1

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Your dog has the ability to tell you exactly how he feels – whether he is happy, sad, bored, excited, disgusted, puzzled, confident, uneasy or frightened.

The inconspicuous and almost continuous movements of his eyes, ears, body and tail are his emotional body language and his primary means of communication. Researchers are finding that, rather than being limited in their means of expression, animals are attuned to an extremely subtle and refined system of communication.

The wild dogs of Africa studied by Jane Goodall and wolves observed by Dr. Michael W. Fox, recognized authority on canine body language, communicated to each other a wide range of attitudes, including anger, dominance, submission, joy, interest, disgust, dismay, affection and fear – using only the slightest body movements.

Though domesticated dogs have lost some sensitivity to this language in their dealings with humans, they still use most of these instinctive, inherited forms of communication. With practice, a sensitive observer with a  keen eye can learn to read his dog's body language.

As he becomes more skilled at identifying subtle changes of mood in his pet, his communication and companionship with him will grow deeper and more pleasurable.

Veterinarians with long experience often read canine body language well, noticing the smallest nuances. Dr. Theodore Stanton, a veterinarian who has practiced now for more than forty years, has become an expert at it. He frequently acts as interpreter for his patients when their owners bring them in for treatment and ask him why their dog is doing certain peculiar things.

“Among Dogs, as among most animals, a hierarchy exists in every group,” says Dr. Stanton.

He goes on to say, “From the most dominant 'top dog' to the lowest 'under dog,' each dog works out with each other in the group which of them will be dominant and which will be submissive. Much of a dog's body language is used in the context of establishing these dominant-submissive relationships with other dogs and also with people.”

A dog uses every part of his body in some way to express his feelings and intentions. The appendage he uses most conspicuously and expressively is his tail.

“You can tell everything by a dog's tail,” explains Mr. Stanton, “He holds it up when he is alert and expecting something. If he has met a strange dog or heard an unusual sound, it quivers a little. He is saying, 'I'm ready for danger; I'm ready for anything!”

The Doctor finishes with, “A tail held very high – almost vertically – or arched over his back says he feels aggressive and dominant, and intends to do something about it if necessary. The dog with his tail tucked tightly between his hind legs is saying, 'I'm scared, and I'm getting out of here!'”

Clicker Training 101: Basic Clicker Training Is A Great Training Tool

Animal training is all about effective communication. The more precise, consistent and accurate that communication is, the quicker the animal learns. One of the best tools to use is a clicker.

Clickers are used to communicate to your dog, quickly and precisely, that what they did was exactly what you were looking for, and at the exact moment they did it. And it signals to the animal that they are about to be rewarded for what they did.

Clickers come in many shapes and sizes. It is basically an inexpensive toy that makes a cricket-like sound. Most clickers are small matchbox-sized plastic boxes.

How It Works:

Initially, a clicker has no value to a dog, so you have to make it mean something. To give value to the clicker, you simply click and give your dog a piece of  highly valued food like chicken, cheese, liver treats and so on.

Food is one of several “primary reinforcers” that dogs respond to and it's the easiest thing to use in this process. Other primary reinforcers include physical affection, play time, and water. If you click and give your dog a piece of food and repeat this ten to twenty times, the clicker now becomes associated with the food.

This process is called classical conditioning. And the clicker now becomes known as a “secondary reinforcer”. In the dog's mind, the click has actually taken on some of the quality of the primary reinforcer, in this case – the food.

(For any of you that know of Pavlov, the guy who rang a bell and linked the “ding” with food, you'll quickly understand the process.)

When your dog has made the association between the clicker and the food, you can begin to use the clicking sound for training. This is called operant conditioning.

Click Now Means “Good Boy!”

Using a clicker is essentially the same as saying “good boy” whenever he does something you want him to. If your dog puts his behind on the floor, for example, and you click the moment that happens, he learns that what he did has earned him a treat.

So now he will more readily repeat that behavior in the future. So the clicker, in essence, “captures” your dog's behavior because it quickly identifies it and the dog understands he will be rewarded.

The clicker is quicker and more precise than saying “good dog” because people have a tendency to remember to click with more consistency and precision than when using verbal praise. People say “good dog” so often throughout the day, this phrase often has less value than the special clicking sound. And quite frankly, it takes longer to say “good dog” than it does to click.

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