For the Love of a Dog (11 page)

It’s worth making one more comment about a dog’s overall posture before we go back to facial signals. That’s because, just as in our species, all of a dog’s expressions have to be taken in context with the signals being given by the rest of her body. One of the most important of those is the direction of a dog’s energy. When you meet a dog, or watch your dog meeting others, ask yourself: which way is the energy directed in the dog’s body? You’ll notice many dogs whose bodies are shifted forward, whether they’re greeting you at the door or saying hello to another dog. Dogs can have their bodies leaning slightly forward as a sign of friendliness, or as a sign of being on the offensive. Either way, the dog is letting you know that he’s in a relatively confident state. If a dog comes toward me willingly, wagging his tail from the shoulders back in a “full-body wag,” head lowered, mouth open, and eyes squinty, I’m going to squat down and have a love fest with him. If a dog’s body is shifted forward and he’s stiff and immobile, with his mouth closed shut and his tail wagging only from the tip, I’m going to stay where I am, and ease the tension by turning away, or pulling out a treat or a ball. However, if the dog is close and begins to advance on me, mouth still shut, body still stiff, I’ll turn my head quickly toward him (there’s that “turn to face” I was talking about) and speak in a low, sharp voice. This is a dog who is on the offensive, and who needs to be stopped without adding to the tension; as soon as I can, I’ll face him off, but then break the tension by saying “Wanna go on a walk?” or “Dinner!”

On the other hand, dogs whose energy is directed backward are
dogs on the defensive, even if they’re growling and flashing their teeth. These are dogs who have a lot of fear in them, and you need to be sure not to put any pressure on them by cornering them or reaching to pet them. Remember that a dog on a leash or a tie-out is essentially trapped, which is undoubtedly why so many bites occur in that circumstance. In
The Other End of the Leash
, I talk at length about how you can use a dog’s awareness of whether another’s body is directed forward or backward, so I won’t go into it here. However, just keeping in mind whether a dog is directed forward or backward can go a long way to helping you predict his future behavior.

You can also learn a lot about a dog’s motivation by watching him approach other dogs. Polite dogs greet one another by approaching from the side, as if following a curved line toward the other dog’s flanks, rather than taking a straight, head-on approach. Direct straight-on approaches are part of polite greetings in our species, but not in dogs, so pay attention to this aspect of the dog’s body as well. You might have noticed that I approached the nervous Lhasa at the seminar by turning my body sideways. You can do the same thing when you meet a new dog—just turn slightly sideways, and approach as if walking forward along a curved line. You’ll be amazed at how many dogs will be thrilled to meet you.

We talked earlier about how our mouths are relaxed and open when we’re smiling; the other key component of a smile is the movement of the corners of the mouth. Retracting the corners of the mouth and raising them is what makes a smile a smile. Even insincere smiles widen the mouth toward the ears. Try it yourself; go to a mirror and smile with just your mouth, and then let your smile move all the way to your eyes. The difference is striking, both in your expression and how you feel when you do it. A sincere smile, which engages the muscles of the mouth, cheeks, and eyes, is the easiest of all expressions to read. A smiling face is evaluated as happy by virtually everyone around the world. Interestingly enough, unlike expressions of fear or anger, smiles don’t happen as often when we’re alone as they do when we’re with others. Human smiles appear to be important signals in social contexts,
because they are almost always given while facing another person. Bowlers who get a strike usually don’t smile until they turn around to face their friends; Olympic athletes receiving their medals smile when they turn to face the crowd. Of course, we all smile on occasion when we’re alone (I can’t seem to stop doing it right now, as I write this—are smiles catching like yawns?), but not with the frequency with which we do it in public. Wherever we smile, and whether we smile sincerely or not, our smiles are always defined by the mouth being partially opened and the corners of the mouth pulling upward and back toward our ears.

Paying attention to the corners of another’s mouth isn’t unique to our species. Many species of mammals pull the corners of their mouths back when they’re nervous, which is why ethologists call that movement a fear grimace. In some species, in social contexts, it’s called a submissive grin, because it’s always given by an individual in a subordinate position. Like many other animals, humans pull back the corners of their mouths when they’re scared. Universally, our species expresses fear by retracting the corners of the mouth, along with rounding the eyes and raising the eyebrows. (See the photo section for examples.) Even human smiles aren’t always expressions of pure joy—many a smile relates to nervousness rather than happiness. Ethologists suggest that our smiles derived from submissive grins, in which the person smiling is signaling that he has no offensive intentions.

As you can see in the photographs, dogs move the corners of their mouth too, and just as in humans, the direction of the movement tells you a lot about how the dog is feeling inside. The corner of the mouth is called the commissure, and dogs, wolves, and coyotes all pull it back when they’re being submissive, defensive, or fearful. Even when dogs are playing, you’ll notice it’s usually the one on the bottom whose commissure is pulled back. That’s not random, it’s an expression of the dog’s internal state. The “defender” has the commissure pulled back, while the pup in the role of offensive tackle has the commissure forward.

Humans also move the corners of our mouths forward when we’re on offense, in our own version of what’s called an “offensive pucker” in dogs and wolves. The commissure of an angry human moves in the opposite direction of a smile, moving forward toward the center of the
face rather than back toward the ears. Make the “mad,” pouty face of an angry five-year-old right now, and notice how your mouth closes and your lips pucker forward. Dogs do something very similar, although I wouldn’t say that they are always angry when they’re doing it. I’ll bet the farm, though, that they’re not scared or submissive. An offensive pucker is one of the best indicators I know that a dog is ready to go on offense, and it doesn’t seem surprising that it correlates with our version of an angry face.

Look at the photographs and consider the difference, in both humans and dogs, between a commissure pulled back and a commissure pushed forward. Like a lot of things, the movements of the corners of the mouth are blindingly obvious once you learn to look for them, but they get little notice until they’re pointed out to you. Start to pay attention to your own dog, and ask yourself which way your dog’s mouth is most likely to move, and in what circumstances. If your dog lunges at another dog with his commissure forward, he’s in a very different state than if he retracts it in a fear grimace. He could be barking and lunging in both cases, but the position of his mouth will help you understand how he’s feeling inside when he does. If your dog puckers her mouth forward when your child tries to take a toy out of her mouth, she’s telling you that she’s standing up for what she believes is her property, and that she’s willing to use her mouth to defend it if necessary. If she growls at a visitor with her commissures retracted, she may be afraid of strangers, and so needs help overcoming her fears when the doorbell rings.

You can see how these facial signals can be useful when you’re working on a treatment plan for a dog who snaps at visitors or won’t let you take the rawhide chew toy away. We’ll talk in later chapters about how to match treatment plans with dogs in different emotional states, but for now, concentrate on being a field researcher in your own living room, and learn to watch which way your dog’s mouth is moving. Think of it as “lip reading,” one species to another.

Dogs do something that looks to some like a human smile, and to others like an aggressive baring of their teeth. “Smiling” dogs raise their
upper lips, usually so much that the skin over the top of their muzzle becomes wrinkled. Because the lips are raised vertically, the dog’s teeth are exposed. There’s nothing like a full set of flashing white teeth in the mouth of a predator to get an emotional reaction out of a primate like us, but these dogs don’t seem to have an aggressive thought in their heads. Surrounding those shiny, sharp teeth are a loose, relaxed body, a lowered head, and the friendly, squinty eyes of a dog who is glad to see you. You see the smile most often when dogs are greeting you after an absence, or welcoming strangers into the house. Smiling dogs usually have a goofy look about them, with their whole body wagging from the shoulders back and their head held parallel to the ground.

I remember one house call at the home of a Golden Retriever. The owners said the dog was becoming aggressive to them and to visitors, although he had yet to snap or bite. I was greeted by a tail-thumping, body-wagging mush-bucket whose lips seemed to have a mind of their own and kept rising upward to expose his teeth. This dog’s posture was the exact opposite of Buddy’s, who never showed me any teeth, but who stood rigid and cold-eyed as I entered. The Golden all but melted into a puddle as I entered the house, but there were those teeth—huge and white and gleaming, and right by my face. It is understandable that visitors weren’t quite sure what to make of them. What a pleasure to be able to tell the owners that their Golden was as dangerous as a stuffed dog, and that those teeth had more to do with a human smile than a warning of potential aggression. We don’t know exactly what emotion a “smiling” dog is expressing, but it doesn’t seem to be associated with anger or fear-related aggression. One good guess, my favorite at the moment, is that it’s an expression of a dog in an ambivalent state, with the primary emotion being one of submission or docility. I think of it as the kind of goofy, nervous grin you’d see on the face of a shy adolescent guy when he picks up his date for the first time.

Another important expression of your dog’s internal emotions is the “tongue flick,” in which your dog’s tongue extends straight out of the mouth and retracts again immediately. Don’t confuse it with the side-swiping tongue of a drooling, hungry dog who anticipates dinner. In a
tongue flick, the tongue is moved in a straight line, forward out of the mouth, and then immediately pulled back in. These little tongue flicks are either expressions of low-level anxiety, or are appeasement gestures from subordinate dogs to higher-ranking ones. How far out the tongue goes is probably dependent upon the extremity of the emotion.
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Once you start looking for tongue flicks, you’ll see them everywhere. Your dog might tongue-flick when you pick up her paw to trim her nails, or perhaps when that big bruiser of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever comes over to play You can see an example of it on a video clip that’s all over the Internet in which the handler of a newly acquired police dog is being interviewed by the local hometown reporter. Squatting down just inches from the dog’s face, the reporter places his hands on either side of the dog’s head as he begins to stand back up. The dog’s mouth is closed up tight, and although he isn’t growling or showing his teeth, experienced dog handlers can tell that he’s uncomfortable with the situation. The reporter didn’t pick up on the signals, but he probably figured things out after the dog bit him full on the face—right after the dog’s tongue flicked out in a clear expression of anxiety.

I often see dogs tongue-flick at the vet’s office, at training classes, while greeting other dogs, and when owners hug them or do anything else that makes them uncomfortable. I also see tongue flicks from submissive dogs who are continually signaling to those around them that they don’t want to be in charge. Of anything. Ever.
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How often a dog tongue-flicks can tell you a lot about her personality. My sweet, submissive Pip tongue-flicks to just about everything, including me when I quietly walk over to pet her. She loves me dearly—at least, I think she does—but she is so submissive she responds to almost any social encounter with a tongue flick. I stopped working her on sheep when a ewe turned to face her, and Pippy responded by wagging her tail and tongue-flicking. Border Collies the world over would have been appalled. On the other hand, Cool Hand Luke almost never tongue-flicked. Luke loved taking charge of recalcitrant sheep and lived his life brimming with confidence. The only time I remember him tongue-flicking in his prime was at the vet’s when he
was being treated for cancer. Years later, when his kidneys were failing, I had to give him subcutaneous fluids twice a day through a huge needle that caused him to whimper plaintively every time I inserted it. After four days of that, he tongue-flicked one morning as I approached him. It was so out of character that I stopped dead in my tracks. I was sure he’d done it because he had learned to associate me with pain. I called the vet’s office in distress (that’s code for “sobbing uncontrollably”), and told them I simply couldn’t be the one to hydrate Luke any longer. In hopes that extra fluid would keep his kidneys from crashing, we kept it up for a few more days, but I drove him to the vet’s twice a day so that our last times together were characterized by love rather than fear. I’m so thankful I knew what that tongue flick meant, because, as sick as Luke was, he never tongue-flicked again, and we were able to spend our last days together in a bittersweet haze of love and grief.

You can tell by the stories above that every dog is different. Start watching your own dog to see when her tongue flicks forward out of her mouth. You might never see it, or you might see it all the time. Picking up the back paw elicits it in some dogs, because most dogs don’t like having their back paws handled. Submissive or slightly nervous dogs will tongue-flick in response, but status-seeking ones will go stiff and clench their jaws.
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(And the in-between dogs will squirm and squiggle, lick your hand, or roll over on their backs.) If you get a good idea of your dog’s “baseline” frequency of tongue flicking, it will help you know when she’s nervous, or feeling submissive. You can also use it around other people’s dogs. A dog who wags his whole body and comes toward you with head down, tongue flicking in and out, is submissively soliciting attention. If, however, a dog stands still, tongue-flicks out of a closed jaw, and then stiffly turns his head away from you, mind your manners. You are being told loud and clear that Fido is uncomfortable, and isn’t interested in a date right now. Ignore this message at your peril.