Wind Sweeps Maltese off Pier Into Bay
Posted using ShareThis
Friday, August 21, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's All in the Wag
Tail Wagging
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.
Posts
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment