« The Sean Hayes Experience | Main | Top 5 Smells »
Tail Wagging
By Paul | February 21, 2008
Here’s an interesting little article the New York Times ran about how detailed a tail-wagging is to a dog:
-
Every dog lover knows how a pooch expresses its feelings.
Ears close to the head, tense posture, and tail straight out from the body means “don’t mess with me.” Ears perked up, wriggly body and vigorously wagging tail means “I am sooo happy to see you!”
But there is another, newly discovered, feature of dog body language that may surprise attentive pet owners and experts in canine behavior. When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.
-
They did tests:
-
In each instance the test dog saw a person or animal for one minute, rested for 90 seconds and saw another view. Testing lasted 25 days with 10 sessions per day. When the dogs saw their owners, their tails all wagged vigorously with a bias to the right side of their bodies. Their tails wagged moderately, again more to the right, when faced with an unfamiliar human. Looking at the cat, a four-year-old male whose owners volunteered him for the experiment, the dogs’ tails again wagged more to the right but in a lower amplitude.
When the dogs looked at an aggressive, unfamiliar dog — a large Belgian shepherd Malinois — their tails all wagged with a bias to the left side of their bodies.
Thus when dogs were attracted to something, including a benign, approachable cat, their tails wagged right, and when they were fearful, their tails went left. It suggests that the muscles in the right side of the tail reflect positive emotions while the muscles in the left side express negative ones.
Makes you wonder if dogs are having complicated discussions about relationships and the meaning of life with just their tails.
Topics: Main |
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Paul, that strip you added to the end made me laugh right out loud. After all that, I didn’t expect that last line by Boomer. Great stuff!
Doesn’t an article like that make you feel sad for dogs that either have really little, nub like tails or none at all? The other dogs must always be suspicious of them because they can’t tell what they’re thinking.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I’ve heard that it can be dangerous for dogs in pack situations if they’ve, say, lost their tail in an accident or something. If the other dogs approach with their tails wagging as a sign of friendship and the dog with no tail can’t respond in kind, they might think he’s being aggressive and then “it’s on!”, which could be trouble.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
After reading that, I immediately wondered if there are left-tailed and right-tailed dogs.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:38 am
As the old, old joke goes, dogs without tails should go to the retail shop. Thank-you, I’m here all night.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Ha! That’s so bad it’s good!