How do dogs communicate?

Perception

Understanding how dogs view and perceive their environment provides useful insight into how dogs might behave in those environments. Dogs navigate their world through their noses. Hearing, touch and sight also feature predominantly, but are still overshadowed by their sense of smell. A dog’s sense of taste pales in comparison to the rest. To find out more about how your dog navigates their environment, check out ‘How dogs see with their noses’: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=p7fXa2Occ_U

How Do Dogs Communicate?

A dog’s primary form of communication is visual – body language. Every single movement - paw lift, tail dip, ear flick, lip lick, yawn, head turn or weight shift - is a conscious form of communication on your dog’s behalf and not only lets us and other dogs know how they’re feeling, but is also specifically for the purpose of avoiding confrontation. Watch your dog closely all the time - the more you observe, the better you get. Signs of stress or fear are often very quick – practice or you might miss them! If a dog wants more interaction, they show comfortable, relaxed and happy body language. These signs can include: moving toward you, relaxed faces, wriggly bodies, tails that wag mid-height, and soft eyes. ‘Distance increasing’ body language is designed to let you or other dogs know they need more space. You can either move the dog away from the situation, or take the ‘scary’/ overwhelming thing away from the dog. The most obvious distance increasing signs are: growling, lunging, snapping, biting, or physically trying to get away, cowering and hiding. The less obvious signs that communicate the need for space are much more important to notice - prevention is always better than a cure! If you fail to notice the subtle early warning signs, your dog may escalate to more obvious and potentially aggressive behaviour to ‘protect’ themselves. Give your dog space (or extra time to decide to approach) as soon as you notice any subtle signs. Subtle signs include: • Ears back • Yawning (when not tired) • Head turn away • Lip licking (except after eating/drinking) • Lowering the head • Whale eye (where you can see the whites of the eyes) • Shake off (as if they were wet) • Weight shifting toward back legs • Panting (when it’s not hot, or they haven’t been exercising excessively) • Tension around the face or stiff body movements • Tail tucked under belly (or low in comparison to normal) or Tail high and stiff

You can practice identifying different types of body language at our very own Body Language Quiz: http://www.charlessturt. sa.gov.au/DogSpeakQuiz More examples of dog body language can be found at: https://www.doggiedrawings.net/ and http://www.dogdecoder.com/