Dogs are experts at body language; if you’ve ever watched a slowed down video of dogs interacting you will be amazed at all the subtle communication going on. That is, if you know what to watch for.
Learn to read subtle canine body language
It would be unrealistic to ask people to become fluent in complex canine body language, but learning to recognize a dozen signals is a reasonable task and can make a world of difference, especially in situations where children are involved.
Every dog is different and each will have signals they favour more than others, but listed below are twelve common signals dogs use to indicate stress (i.e. excitement, confusion, anxiety, fear). Some of these behaviors are deliberate signals to others, some are physical responses to stress, and some are used to self-calm. When you see any of these, take note that your dog is probably under stress and you may need to intervene on his/her behalf to prevent problems.
- Closed mouth
- Look away or turn away
- Lip licking
- Half-moon eye or whale-eye (white of the eye is showing)
- Shaking off as if wet
- Yawning when not sleepy
- Breathing changes (holding breath or begining to pant when there is no temperature change or exertion)
- Increased hair loss and/or exfoliation (dander)
- Meticulous grooming or frequent checking of body part
- Scratching
- Excessive salivation (when no food is present)
- Sniffing
Illustrations of dog body language indicating stress.
Videos of dog body language:
Dog’s Using Subtle Body Language to Avoid Greetings (to say “No, thank you” to the greeting opportunity)
Dog Body Language (by Fear Free Pets)
Understanding Dog Body Language Part 1 ;
Understanding Dog Body Language Part 2
What can people do to manage a situation when a dog is stressed?
In many cases, the dog will require extra distance and time to adjust to whatever is causing the stress, sometimes needing to be removed from the situation entirely. If children are nearby, the dog should be moved immediately to a safe distance. Many people make the mistake of assuming that because a dog isn’t growling or using other obvious signals of distress the dog must be fine with a situation.
In her book Kids and Dogs: A Professional’s Guide to Helping Families Colleen Pelar highlights this problem and suggests dog owners think of a traffic light analogy when reading their dogs. In her experience, many dog owners describe their dogs as being “fine” with something yet what she sees is that the dogs are showing early warning signals. She points out that there is a difference between enjoyment (“green light” signals) and tolerance (“yellow light” signals), and that a dog’s tolerance can quickly be exhausted and cause him to start using “red light” signals. She cautions adults to intervene immediately upon seeing the dogs giving “yellow light” signals.
Many dogs have learned to stop using subtle calming signals and jump quickly to more extreme signals like lunging, growling, barking, and even biting. In many cases dogs have learned to do this because the subtle signals aren’t working for them: the “scary thing” goes away only when they use the extreme signals – signals that read as aggression. Dogs don’t generally start off this way but become “growly” when the humans around them haven’t been picking up on the lower level signals of stress and dogs are put into difficult situations: the dog is pressured to continue to let the child lay on him; the dog is required to get closer to the other dog before he is ready to do so; the dog is forced to be held by a stranger. Dogs eventually goes over their thresholds and this is when humans finally seem to pay attention and intervene. The child is removed from the dog; the other dog gets farther away; the stranger stops holding the dog keeps her distance.
On of the biggest mistakes people do when a dog growls
To complicate this problem, many people also make the mistake of scolding or punishing dogs for using warning signals like growling, lunging, and barking. They address the symptoms rather than the cause. The problem with this approach is that the dogs learn to suppress their signals and people think the problem is solved, when in fact what they’ve created are dogs that bite without warning. Sometimes it makes more sense to people if they consider a similar situation for a young child: if a child is scared of something, then scolding or punishing will only increase the child’s anxiety. Instead of scolding or punishing a dog for growling, lunging, or barking, people should look for the causes of these behaviours. The dog is giving information about his emotional state and this is where the training should focus; a positive reinforcement program of desensitization and counter-conditioning will help change the dog’s emotional responses to the “scary thing” and as a consequence, the growling, lunging, and barking will no longer be necessary.
When people learn to read their dogs better, their relationship with their dogs can only improve. Dogs will learn to trust their people more, their reactivity will decrease, and as a result, people will want to spend more time with their dogs.
Owners of over-reactive dogs or dog owners who want to prevent their dogs from becoming over-reactive (e.g. adolescent dogs) can contact me
Certified Professional Dog Training 