I bet you weren't expecting that, eh?
Anyway, it's been just about 6 months since my wife's dog Fuzzy (not her real name) came to live with us. The old Fuzz is probably one of the most beautiful, sweet-natured dogs that ever lived, and what's more, she's fairly good at communicating what she's thinking, or, what's pretty much the same, what she wants. She usually wants what any dog does: to eat (practically any time), to drink (after any sort of exertion or excitement, like seeing a squirrel), and to go out (when she has a call of nature, or if she hears something outside, or if she's just bored).
As I related to you some posts back, the domestic dog, as a species, owes its success to its adeptness at communicating with humans. Part of the equation is --and probably the major part-- how much they understand humans, particularly the humans who belong to them. Each dog seems to take on its own family of humans as a sort of project, and becomes practiced at understanding what each member wants and is thinking, to the point where many people convince themselves that their dog can read their mind! Most of the time this is because we give off cues that the dog can pick up on, and it sometimes knows what we want before we realize it ourselves. So by the time we arrive at the realization, and notice the dog, it's as though the dog knew it instantly. E.g., I'm going to feed you, or I'm thinking of taking you for a walk. (Walks are pretty high up in a dog's scale of values.)
On the other side of the coin, there's how dogs tell us what's going on in their heads. It's not that they set out to develop a sort of sign language for humans, or anything of the sort; their human communication is derived from dog-dog communication, which is, to some extent, based on universal mammal-to-mammal communication. I'm not an expert on the subject in the least; this is pure speculation on my part, and anyone who has studied the subject would be hard put to come up with irrefutable evidence for any theory he might have. In other words, even experts are probably mostly speculating. But it makes sense that dogs of today are descended from ancestors who were particularly clever at communicating with their human pets, so it is possible that the language transmitted from dog parent to dog child, or any communication instincts that are handed down genetically, have been selected to be successful at what they do.
I'm just going to collect here a few very basic categories of doggie language, which I am sure have been noticed by practically everybody.
Tail wagging
This is almost the trademark dog behavior, but what does it mean? Most people mistake it to mean happiness, but it basically means excitement. A dog will wag his tail even when it sees something in the yard that he can chase, like a fox, or another dog, or a neighbor you can't stand. It just means: here's something to relieve the boredom! Of course, when you arrive after being gone for a while, the dog is excited to see you. In the mind of a dog, I'm guessing, there's isn't much difference between excitement and happiness. (With cats, too, tail wagging signals excitement, but usually of a threatening kind. Cats are simple creatures, and are usually not concerned with signalling feelings to their prospective prey!)
Walking in a circle
Fuzzy sometimes walks in a tight circle, and then stands expectantly. It's clear from her manner that she expects me to understand what that means. What is it? It means anything from "Let's go!" to "I want to go out," to "Outside!" in response to a question I might have asked: What do you want, Fuzz? So it is a multi-purpose unit of meaning that can mean a number of related things, all in the general area of going, and more precisely, going out.
This is a classic part of a trained animal actors' behavior. It means, essentially: What? Dogs use this motion to convey puzzlement of any kind, especially if it is something it thinks it was expected to understand. If an instruction was unclear, the dog cocks its head to a side. So very intelligent dogs spend a lot of time doing this, simply because they expect that most of what you're doing is giving them instructions.
Prancing
This is what a dog does when it appears to dance, and comes straight down with its two front paws together. (Horses do it, too.) This mostly means: let's play, or let's run! It's a general response to an expected fun activity. Oddly enough, when Fuzz chases a squirrel up a tree, this is what she does: she prances at the foot of the tree, asking the squirrel to come down and play. If the squirrel were to actually come down, she probably would bite its head off, but it's all in fun.
Another playful behavior is tossing something, as if the dog is playing fetch. I've only seen The Fuzz doing this a couple of times, with a rope toy, but they pretend to shake the toy to death and toss it at you, quite a horrible joke, if you were to think of the toy as a small animal. She can throw the rope quite far, actually. I have heard of another dog who threw something so hard that it cracked a pane of glass.
More serious behaviors, to coin a phrase, are to roll over on her back: this is a gesture of submission; and of course to stand, with the front legs slightly splayed, and snarl, is an unmistakable gesture of defiance. Barking, on the other hand, can mean lots of things, from: Is anybody out there? to: You're getting too close, buster.
Smiling
Dogs smile, or rather, they grin. They have a sense of humor, as I have pointed out before, and they play jokes, usually terrible practical jokes, which gives them no end of amusement.
Pacing
Dogs pace for pretty much the same reasons that we do. They combine pacing with staring at their human fixedly, and it is pretty unnerving to realize that the dog might be expecting something from you, but is at a loss to explain exactly what. It would be nice if you had a genius like Lassie who can practically write what she means on paper, but the vocabulary of the average dog is severely limited, and all she can do is tell you that she's impatient. Finally,
Sitting in the middle of the doorway
You've probably wondered why your dog lies down right in the middle of your path to the door, or to the kitchen, or whatever, and doesn't budge. This seems to be particularly true of females--don't ask me why.
My theory is that the dog is thinking strategically, and (a) wants to keep an eye on her surroundings, either to be aware of possible threats, or, more likely, (b) not to miss any excitement. So a dog is likely to place him- or herself on your route out of the house, such as to the garage, or the front door, or the back door, so that --in principle, if not in practice-- he or she can join you on an excursion. But most animals, at least mammals, will place themselves strategically so that they can keep an eye on everything. In cold weather, of course, the need to keep warm trumps the need to keep an eye on everything, so you'll find Rover plopping himself down in front of the fireplace.
If you have observed other behaviors that I've missed, let me know!
Arch
No comments:
Post a Comment