Our canine companions have been by our sides for tens of thousands of years, and though they may not utter words, every tail wag, ear flick and furrowed brow speaks volumes – if you know how to read them.
Often owners think they understand their pooches pretty well, but research suggests that dogs are much better at reading our body language than we are theirs.
To help turn the tables and unravel the mysteries of canine communication, we enlisted the help of animal behaviour expert Dr Zazie Todd. From snout to tail, ears to paws, she explains the hidden meaning behind your dog's every move.
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How to read your dog’s facial expressions
As people, we spend a lot of time looking at each other’s faces. It’s the first port of call if you want to know what someone’s thinking. But can you get inside a dog’s head in the same way?
“Some dogs have very, very expressive faces. Others aren’t quite as expressive because their face shape is different,” Todd says. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to anthropomorphise facial expressions if it helps us to understand what our dogs are thinking, but it can be bad if we go too far.”
Todd explains that a dog's equivalent to a human ‘smile’ is when their jaws are relaxed and their mouth is slightly open. You might catch a glimpse of their gnashers but not in a threatening way.
On the flip side, a toothy dog ‘grin’ is the dog bearing its teeth at you – that’s a sign to back away and give them some space.
A classic over-anthropomorphisation, Todd says, is the ‘guilty look’. You know, the one your dog gives you when you come home and find your cushion shredded into a million and one pieces on the living room floor.
A 2009 study published in the journal Behavioural Processes looked into the guilty look to see if there was any truth behind it. Dogs were left with a tasty treat that they weren’t supposed to eat while their owners left the room. Scientists then watched what happened as the owners came back in with varying knowledge of what had played out in their absence.
What they showed is that dogs don’t really have the depth of understanding of what they’ve done to feel guilty (cheeky, right?). Instead, the guilty behaviours were much more associated with whether or not the naughty pooches were about to get in trouble with their owner.
The guilty look they give you “probably means the dog is worried that you’re going to tell them off, which isn’t quite the same thing as feeling guilt,” Todd says in relation to the study. “It doesn't mean that they realise they’ve done something wrong, it just means they think you’re going to be angry with them.”
That’s a subtle yet all-important difference when it comes to understanding your dog’s psyche.
All of that doesn’t mean that eyes aren’t the windows into a dog’s soul, however. “A dog who likes and knows you will make a lot of eye contact with you,” Todd says. “Sometimes people are worried about why their dog is staring at them so much, but it’s important for your dog to keep an eye on you and how you're feeling.”
Conversely, a fearful or stressed-out dog might avoid looking at you and making eye contact.
Another key component of your pooch’s facial expression, and something that we humans don’t use much of, is their ears.
According to Todd, ears that are up and forward slightly demonstrate that a dog is interested in something, while ears tilting back can be a sign of anxiety. “Some dogs put their ears back to greet people, though,” she adds.
Sadly, those especially floppy-eared friends have lost much of this form of expression, although if they’re down and slightly forward that could be a sign of interest too.
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How to tell if your dog’s stressed out
One of the first things Todd points out is that people tend to be pretty good at telling when a dog is happy – she says the signs are “quite easy to spot”, like when your dog wags its tail in wide arcs – but anxious or fearful dogs can be more difficult to read. “Often we miss things because we think it means something else.”
For example, when a dog yawns you might assume it’s just a bit sleepy, quite relaxed even. But science would suggest otherwise.
In a 2017 study conducted by researchers at the University of Guelph and the University of Pennsylvania, strangers approached dogs wearing a mask and a cape, flapping the cape up and down and crouching as they did so.
The team were on the hunt for subtle behaviour signals that indicated a dog was feeling fearful. Yawning was one such signal, not associated with being tired, but instead indicating that the dog was feeling scared of the stranger's weird behaviour.
The same goes for a dog that’s licking its lips. No, they’re probably not after a tasty treat but are more likely letting you know they’re finding the situation uncomfortable.
Todd explains that it all depends on context. Often behaviours like these don’t mean your dog is having a bad time, but it’s something to be aware of as in the wrong situation they could do.
Other stressed-out signals include moving away from someone, sniffing the ground (not to be confused with when your dog is enjoying a good sniff of something, with ears pointed forwards), body shaking or a lifted paw.
How to read your dog’s posture
The basics of dog posture are fairly easy to grasp. A low, hunched body reflects a fearful dog; a big, stiff body with hackles along the back conveys a threat. Simple.
Another behaviour Todd thinks we should look out for, though, is the all-the-more friendly ‘play bow’.
“It’s a really lovely signal, I think, to see that your dog wants to play,” she says. The play bow is characterised by a dog stretching its legs out in front and leaning down on its ‘elbows’. Its bum will be up in the air as this happens.
Dogs use this signal with both humans and other dogs and it can sometimes be accompanied by a bit of a growl. Interestingly, Todd explains, this posturing is common among other canines too, including wolves and coyotes.
How to understand your dog’s tail wags
Humans lost their tails millions of years ago, but dogs, you may have noticed, still have theirs. They have a myriad of uses including aiding balance, fending off insects and increasing or minimising scent.
But, of course, tails are also a great way for dogs to communicate. “When dogs are happy they wag their tail really wide and loose. Sometimes their whole body wags too,” Todd says.
On the other paw, “a vertical, tight tail accompanied by a narrow wag can be a sign that the dog is not feeling well, or is perhaps stressed or offensive.” And a tail that’s down likely means the dog is unhappy.
If you really want to understand your dog's tail wagging, try paying attention to the direction of the swish too. Research published in the journal Current Biology, for example, found that happy dogs tend to wag their tail more to the right (from the dog’s point of view), while a less happy dog will have a more left-dominated wag.
How to understand barks and growls
Despite the dogs you might have seen on social media using soundboards to ‘talk’, for most pups their barks and growls (plus, perhaps, the occasional whimper) are the only form of vocal communication they can use.
Todd explains that categorising different barks is a challenge, but that there are certain kinds we can associate with different scenarios or feelings like someone they know coming home versus a stranger.
One 2017 study looking into the context of dog growls showed that in serious contests where confrontation could be costly, dogs use their growls to honestly communicate their size and inner mental state.
Meanwhile, in less certain states such as in play or when threatened by a stranger, they can manipulate their growls to exaggerate aggressive or playful expressions.
Human participants in the study were able to pick out the correct context of the growls more accurately than would be expected by chance. In particular, women and experienced dog owners were best at picking out the right scenario for a given growl.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, dogs are much better at discerning meaning from barks in different contexts and from other dogs than we are. “It’s hard for us to tell the difference, but dogs seem to be aware of what different barks and growls mean,” Todd says.
About our expert
Zazie Todd is an animal behaviour expert and award-winning writer. She started Companion Animal Psychology in 2012 to explore how science can help us to have happier cats and dogs. The Animal Book Club followed in 2016, and Companion Animal Psychology is now visited by over 50,000 people a month.
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