Listening to your dog   
    



  





For species that live in packs it’s important to be able to communicate with its own kind. Both in order to cooperate when they hunt, to bring up their offspring, and perhaps most importantly: to live in peace with each other. Conflicts are dangerous - they cause physical injuries and a weakened pack, which is something that no pack can afford - it will cause them to go extinct.

Dogs live in a world of sensory input: visual, olfactory, auditory perceptions. They easily perceive tiny details - a quick signal, a slight change in another’s behavior, the expression in our eyes. Pack animals are so perceptive to signals that a horse can be trained to follow the contraction in our pupils and a dog can be trained to answer your whispering voice. There’s no need to shout commands, to make the tone of our voice deep and angry - what Karen Pryor refers to as swatting flies with a shovel.

The dogs have about 30 calming signals, perhaps even more. Most dogs use some of these signals, while other dogs have an incredibly rich ´vocabulary´. It varies from dog to dog.

The problem

Dogs use this communication system towards us humans, simply because it’s the language they know and think everyone understands.

By failing to see your dog using calming signals on you, and perhaps even punish the dog for using them, you risk causing serious harm to your dog. Some may simply give up using the calming signals, including with other dogs. Others may get so desperate and frustrated that they get aggressive, nervous or stressed out as a result. Puppies and young dogs may actually go into a state of shock.

Basic knowledge

Dad calls Prince and has learned in class that he needs to sound strict and dominant so that Prince will understand who is in charge. Prince finds dad’s voice to be aggressive, and being a dog he instantly give dad a calming signal in order to make him stop being aggressive. Prince will perhaps lick his own nose, yawn, turn away - which will result in dad becoming angry for real, because dad perceives Prince as being pig-headed, stubborn and disobedient. Prince is punished for using his calming signals to calm dad. This is a typical example of something that happens on an everyday basis with many dog owners.

We need to learn to understand the language of dogs so that we can understand what our dogs are telling us. That is the secret of having a good life together.

How the dog is using the calming signals

Yawning

The dog may yawn when someone bends over him, when you sound angry, when there’s yelling and quarreling in the family, when the dog is at the vet’s office, when someone is walking directly at the dog, when the dog is excited with happiness and anticipation - for instance by the door when you are about to go for a walk, when you ask the dog to do something he doesn’t feel like doing, when your training sessions are too long and the dog gets tired, when you have said NO for doing something you disapprove of, and in many other situations.

Threatening signals (to walk straight at, reach for the dog, bending over the dog, staring into the dog’s eyes, fast movements, and so on) will always cause the dog to use a calming signal. There are about 30 different calming signals, so even when many dogs will yawn, other dogs may use another calming signal.

All dogs know all the signals. When one dog yawns and turn his head to the side, the dog he is ´talking to´ may lick his nose and turn his back - or do something completely different.

The signals are international and universal. All dogs all over the worlds have the same language. An elkhound that lives in an isolated valley in Norway would understand a dog from Japan. They will have no communication problems!










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