The Secret Language of Dogs

The “Secret” Language of Dogs

(As Taught by Wolves)

Your best friend meets you at the door, tail wagging, ears perked up and making high yapping sounds. Obviously you have a happy dog on your hands. But, you go over to a friend’s house and are met at the door by a dog with his tail wagging, ears perked up and making low growling sounds. Obviously the dog is sending you warning signals that you’re intruding on his territory.

Humans use a verbalized language, emphasized in varying degrees with body posturing to get their point across. Other animals, especially our canine companions, are quite opposite of us, with body language being emphasized by varying degrees of vocalized sounds to make their point. But what do all those posturing positions mean? How do dogs communicate? Well, even though they can't talk or write, dogs communicate in a variety of ways.

Even though there are over a hundred different breeds, all dogs are domesticated wolves. Humans have tweaked their physiology to meet our needs and desires, but the wolf instincts and nature is still there. We can see this in dogs who are left to run wild, in how they instinctively create a pack and a hierarchy within the pack. Within the human-canine family unit, the human takes the role of the Alpha male (or female) and the dog takes a subordinate role. They basically think of us as just a funny looking, hairless wolf walking on our back legs, who also fills the supper bowl when it’s empty and throws balls.

Because dogs are basically just domesticated wolves, the communication methods are the same. By looking at how the wolf pack communicates, we can understand what our dogs may be telling us.

One of the most important and interesting ways that a wolf communicates is through body language. The wolf pack is very organized; all the wolves in the pack live by certain rules. The foremost rule is that there is one leader (usually the only breeding pair) and everyone else is a follower. The leaders of the pack are the Alpha Male and the Alpha Female. They are the biggest, strongest and smartest wolves in the pack, and they can (and will) prove it.

The Alpha pair, as the dominant pair, enforces their dominance through body language. They communicate this status with their bodies by carrying their tails high and standing with their backs straight and tall at the shoulder. The less dominant wolves keep their tails low and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher ranking wolves. When two wolves have a disagreement, they show their teeth and growl at each other, trying to look fierce as they can. Usually the less dominant wolf, the subordinate one, gives up before there is actually a fight. To show that it gives up, the wolf rolls over on its back with its belly exposed while the other wolf stands over it.

This ritualistic act of dominance and submission helps maintain the pack order while not diminishing pack resources through actual fighting.

Wolves communicate other things with their bodies, too, including fear, anger, suspicion and playfulness. When a wolf is suspicious, they will generally pull their ears close to the head and narrow their eyes. An angry wolf may stick their ears straight up and bare their teeth. Fear is frequently shown by the ears flattened against the head. A wolf who wants to play will dance around and put the front of its body down, while leaving the back part up in the air.

Wolves have a very good sense of smell, which they also use to communicate, marking their territory with urine and scat. When outside wolves smell this, they know that an area is already occupied. Of course their sense of smell also tells them when food or enemies are near.

Have you ever heard a wolf howl? That is one of the ways wolves communicate with their voices. Wolves don't just howl at the moon. They howl any time of the day, but are most often heard in the evening, when the pack is most active. They howl to find other pack members, to let outside wolves know where their territory is, or to get the pack excited and ready to hunt. Sometimes it seems as if they howl just for fun. Wolves also bark to warn other pack members of danger or to challenge an enemy. They often growl in dominance disputes or other kinds of fights. They make a squeaking noise to call the pups and the pups' mother will whimper to calm them down.

Vocalization serves several different functions. As wolf pups are born blind, they are unable to being learning the body language of the pack until their eyes open, at about three weeks or so. The mother wolf uses a series of whimpers to calm the pups as she cares for them. As they grow up and begin moving around the den, the whimpers turn to more squeak-like sounds. The pups themselves echo these squeaking sounds and make their own high-pitched yips and yowls. All members of the pack will respond to the sounds the pups make, regardless of their social order.

As the pups grow into adulthood, vocal sounds deepen and go from the puppy yips to adult barks and growls. Growling is generally a warning, either to a potential rival for pack dominance or to an enemy outside the pack. Growls are usually accompanied by bared teeth and raised hackles. Adults also bark as an alarm signal or to challenge intruders. The pitch and frequency of the bark will change, depending on what the intruder is doing. The more frantic the barking, or the more noise the animal is making, the more attention it is trying to draw to the situation.

The last kind of vocalization that wolves make is, at least to some, the most beautiful – the howl. Wolves will howl any time of the day, but are most often heard in the evening hours during their higher activity periods. Howling is used to let other members know where the howling member is and to help define territory. A wolf who has lost his position for some reason will sit and howl, then use the echoing howls of his pack to find his way home.

Because our domesticated companions are bred from the wolf, they display these same traits. So the next time you dog is barking endlessly at the fence or growling at the door or dancing around the living room with his tail-end high and head low, you might want to stop and listen to him.