Blogspot - Companion Animal Psychology

A guide to spotting fearful body language in dogs, and a chance to test out your skills. Photo: Utekhina Anna / Shutterstock You have to learn to read dog body language if you want to know when or if your dog is afraid.  This is a guide to spotting the signs. Many people find it hard to tell when their dog is afraid and may even think their dog is okay when that’s not the case. This is very common but it can mean people are risking being bitten without knowing. And we can look after our dogs better if we know how to read canine body language. Dog Body Language: Signs of Fear, Anxiety and Stress There are many signs of fear, anxiety and stress in dogs. Things to look for include a tucked tail, ears back, licking the lips or nose, whale eye (wide eyes showing the whites of the eyes), looking away, lifting a paw, trembling or shaking, a low body posture, yawning, panting, grooming, sniffing, seeking out people (e.g. looking for comfort from you), hiding, not moving, a stiff or frozen...

Are lip licking and looking away signals of discomfort and expressions of peace in the domestic dog? Guest post by Georgina (Gina) Bishopp (Hartpury College, UK) Photo: StudioCAXAP A study by Dr. Angelika Firnkes (Ludwig Maximilians University Munich) et al., 2017 has found that the domestic dog uses appeasement gestures both when feeling threatened and during greetings with humans. For the first time it has now been shown that dogs will use at least two of these signals, the lip lick and look away, to appease their human social companions. Turid Rugaas (2005) had previously described a set of behaviours in dogs, including the lip lick and looking away, through years of working as a behavioural consultant, that she described as ‘Calming Signals’. Rugaas (2005) explained that the dogs would use these ‘Calming Signals’ when feeling uncomfortable and attempting to prevent aggressive responses from their conspecifics and humans. For the first time scientific research has supported this t...