Dog Body Language 101: What Your Dog is REALLY Trying to Tell You

Many dog owners have that moment where their seemingly friendly dog all of a sudden growls, lunges, reacts, maybe even bites seemingly out of nowhere. And it might leave you wondering, what happened? What went wrong? Although it might seem like this reaction, this situation happened without any warning, your dog actually gave you five clear warning signs in the last 30 seconds before the incident. Warning signs that if you were able to pick up on, read, and understand their language, it could have prevented the entire situation. Today we're talking about dog body language, how to understand your dog. The first thing to assess when you're looking at a dog and you're reading their body language is the tail. There's going to be three general tail positions that you'll want to be aware of. The first one is a tail raise, the second one is a tail lowered, and the third one is a tail tuck. If you have a dog that has a docked tail, the docked tail can be considered a handicap in reading tails, but dogs do modify how they hold their docked tail, so you'll be able to get a pretty good picture of how that dog's docked tail is being held if you're paying attention. First let's talk about the raised tail. When a dog's tail is up, that's usually a signal of dominance and confidence from the dog. If the tail is up and the tip of the tail is curled over at the top, that's an even stronger signal that that dog is feeling dominant and confident. Something to note about a dog that's feeling dominant or confident, they could potentially decide they may need to, in their opinion of course, correct the person or a dog around them. So be aware of that when you note that a dog is feeling dominant or confident. The next tail position is a lowered tail. Now a tail could be lowered and the way that the tip of the tail is hanging could give you a better indication of how that dog's feeling, but in general a tail that's just simply lowered is a dog that's neutral, possibly relaxed, depending on the situation, depending on the context. If the tip of the tail is curved outward away from the body, that's more of a relaxed tail position. If that tip of the tail is curved inward between the legs and toward the body, that's more of a nervous or submissive or possibly getting a little fearful position. A dog that's feeling relaxed and neutral doesn't necessarily mean that it wants to get pet, so you always want to ask someone before you pet their dog and continue reading the dog's body language and make sure your kids know that as well. Now if the dog's tail is tucked, this is the third position we'll talk about. If the dog's tail is tucked, that generally means that the dog is feeling nervous, it's feeling submissive, it's feeling fearful, it's feeling insecure. It could be a combination of these feelings, so if you see that tail tuck, just be aware. That's what's going on in that dog's mind. If you approach them, you could push them into fight or flight mode. Flight mode meaning they're trying to get away from you, but if they feel like they can't get away from you, they might lash out and bite because they feel threatened by your approach, so be very aware when you're reading the tail position. Now when we're talking about the tail, we also have to talk about wagging. A lot of people interpret that a wagging tail means a dog is happy. That's not the case, so if a tail is up and wagging, we know that that dog is feeling dominant. We know it's feeling confident. We know it's feeling aroused because the wagging is indicating arousal or excitement, which could mean that dog that's feeling that way might be more likely to try and correct a person or a dog around them, so again, be very wary in this specific situation if you see a dog like that. If a dog's tail is lowered and wagging, that could indicate that that dog is feeling a little bit unsure, a little bit nervous. It's getting a little aroused. Now if a dog holds their tail horizontal to the ground, and especially if that tail is wagging back and forth, that's generally your best indicator of a dog that's happy and friendly, especially if that butt is wiggling at the same time, the butt wag with the horizontal tail wag. These are clear signs that the dog is happy and feeling friendly. Hey, if you're finding value from this video, go ahead and hit that like button for us. Also with that being said, if you know someone that needs to learn more about dog body language, send them the video. That way they can be educated as well. The next thing I'm looking at is the ears and the head. Now dogs are going to have a variety of ear shapes and sizes depending on their breed, but in general you've got two main ear types. You've got the upright ears and then you've got the floppy ears. So with those two types in mind, the way they move is generally the same, but you have to be able to pick up on the little differences between the ear types. If those ears are being held forward, that's generally a sign of dominance, confidence, alertness. This is generally going hand in hand with an upright tail. And you might see some wrinkling on the forehead as well, depending on how forward that dog brings their ears. The next ear position is going to be when a dog's ears are in their relaxed position. Again, this is going to be dependent on the dog, but in general ears that are held in a neutral position on the head. The head seems relaxed. The dog's overall expression is relaxed. We're looking at that tail still. That tail is lowered, right? General signs of relaxation. Those ears should just be sitting naturally as best as you can imagine in that dog's natural state. And the third ear position that we're looking at is when the dog pulls the ears all the way back. All right, so depending on the dog's ears, like floppy ear dogs, they generally get them back pretty good. Upright ear dogs, sometimes they're just slightly back, but when you see those ears come back, that's your sign that the dog is nervous, submissive, possibly fearful. All of the combination of these types of things. And keep in mind, your dog can fluctuate their positioning of their ears, their tail, the rest of their body parts very rapidly, so they can shift between feelings very rapidly as well. So this is why it's important to pay attention to all this in the moment as things are going on, so you know what your dog's feeling. Eye contact in the dog world is a big deal. And no, I'm not talking about the eye contact that we teach on our channel, how to teach your dog to focus on you, how to teach your dog to look at you, how to teach your dog engagement. These are big things we need to teach our dog. But I'm talking about the natural eye contact between dogs and their natural language. If you come across a dog and they're staring at you and you find yourself in a staring match with that dog, that's generally going to be a sign of dominance from that dog. If that dog is staring at you non-stop and you happen to be staring at them and the dog's mind, you are challenging them and you are now in a dominant standoff. So be very aware of dogs that are staring at you or staring at things as their sign of dominance. Now if you end up in a stare-off with a dog and the dog looks away from you, even looking to the side really quick, looks to the side even slightly or deliberately looks away, that dog is trying to show you submission and the respectful thing to do is to take the pressure off the dog. Yes, even just looking at a dog could be pressure on that dog. So if the dog looks away, you would look away as well. Maybe you show it the side profile of your body versus the frontal profile. These are respectful signs to the dog that you're not trying to cause conflict or trouble and that you're accepting their submission. Let's say you're looking at a dog, the dog's looking at you and that dog blinks. Believe it or not, blinking is also a sign of submission from the dog. So the respectful thing to do if a dog blinks at you is going to be blinking back at them. That basically tells them, hey, we're good to go. There's no conflict or anything, especially with a dog you don't know. Or again, turning your head, showing it the side profile of your body. All these are good options to show the dog that you're not trying to provide conflict or escalate anything. And again, this is with dogs that you're not familiar with or maybe some dogs that you are familiar with, but you never understood what they're really communicating with you. These are the big things you should be looking at. Now that we've learned about the tail, the ears, the head, the eyes, it's time to talk about some other facial expressions that are pretty common among dogs. First of all is going to be lip licking. If you notice a dog lip licking, this is generally a sign of conflict in that dog's mind. So it could be stress, it could be anxiety, it could be insecurity. It could also be a warning sign that the dog feels like they might need to bite or correct a person or a dog or a thing, right? So anytime you see lip licking, give that dog some space. Figure out what is going on around you that could be causing the conflict or the stress. And definitely play it safe because you don't want that dog to feel like it has to press forward and correct or bite something around them. The next facial expression is going to be yawning. So dogs do yawn because they're tired just like we do, but they also yawn because they feel stress, they feel anxiety, they feel conflict. So what you want to do is help your dog understand how to cope with that stress, how to cope with that conflict through a training process that helps them understand how to operate. A third facial expression that you might notice with your dog is panting. Now dogs don't sweat like we do, so they do pant to sweat. But you might notice your dog panting when it's not really hot, when there's no reason to be sweating. If you see this, this could be a sign of anxiety, stress, insecurity, conflict. So just something to be aware of that if you notice a lot of panting, there could be something going on causing your dog some stress. And you'd want to figure out what that is or teach your dog not to be stressed by that thing through a training process. If you find that your dog is yawning a lot, lip licking a lot, or panting a lot, where it seems like there's a level of stress that's it should be, you might want to look into a consultation with a professional dog trainer or behavior expert to figure out what's going on with your dog. And if you'd like to work on this with my team, just check out the link in the description. We'll be happy to help. All right, the top three mistakes that a lot of people are making when they're meeting dogs or interacting with dogs is number one, assuming that a tail wag means the dog is happy. Remember what we said earlier, a tail wag does not always mean the dog's happy. It could mean the dog is feeling aroused, excitable, or a host of other things depending on the context, depending on what's going on. But your main indication for a happy, friendly dog in regards to a tail wag is going to be the tail being held horizontal to the ground, wagging back and forth, and especially if the butt is wagging with the tail. The second mistake that most people are making when they're reading dog body language is ignoring stress signals. Stress signals such as the dog's feeling anxious, insecure, nervous, fearful, dominant, confident, all these stress signals can indicate that the dog potentially might react, might growl, might lunge, might bite. So you got to be careful and don't just ignore the stress signals. Take it into the big picture of what the dog's explaining through their language. And the third mistake that most people are making is forcing interactions when the dog says no. And just because the owner says that it's okay to pet does not mean that that dog's okay to pet. So you need to make sure that you're reading that dog's body language properly, starting with the tail, moving to the head and the ears, then observing the eyes and the overall big picture of what that dog's showing you. If there's anything that seems like the dog is not comfortable, don't force it. Say it's all right. Give them their space. I could go on talking about dog body language all day. So if you found this video helpful, hit that like button. And if you want to learn more about dog body language or get some more content about it, just leave me a comment below. I do read them. That way we know what you'd like to see. And one of the big things that's good for us and our dogs is teaching our dogs how to listen to us. That way, if our dog is uncomfortable, we can call them back to us. We can tell them how to handle a situation that we find ourselves faced with. So in this video, I teach you how to get your dog to listen to you. So join me here. I'll see you there.