How the dog communicated

The dog is a social animal, that is, he lives in a group. And to maintain a united group, it is essential that its members communicate with each other. In addition, the dog is able to adapt to other species, including humans. He can learn to modify his signals to make himself better understood. How does it work, and what are the most used signals in dogs?

The communication between two individuals, whatever the species, rests on three bases: the message, the ability of the sender to produce that message, and the receiver's ability to pay attention to it and understand it. By definition, the communication is the transmission of an information-carrying signal, from a transmitter to a receiver, via a channel (Weaver & Shannon 1949).

What characterizes the interaction between the human and the dog is their ability to adapt to each other. Communication is essential: each master-dog couple will develop their vocabulary, their habits, and in a certain way, their complicity.

The dog uses different signals: vocalizations, postures ... these signals are often derived from vital functions that now serve communication. Ritualization is the phenomenon of redirecting behavior towards communication (Tinbergen, 1952); the signals then become stereotypes (that is, they are understood by all the individuals in the group).

Before detailing what are the most common stereotyped behaviors and their meaning, it is important to see what are the main axes of canine communication.

Visual communication.

It corresponds to a sense that the man and the dog use a lot (especially the man). Indeed, for the dog, it is easier to distinguish postures than sounds.

Mimics and facial expressions are highly developed in dogs. We have a great diversity of facial musculature, allowing a great wealth of visual communication. We note in passing that the more the species is social, the more it has a great variability of mimicry.

Here are the elements to constitute a mimicry (Fox, 1971):

Orientation of the ears

Diameter of the eye

Opening of the mouth

Repetitive language pass ("tongue flicking")

Roll up / retract the upper lip

Degree of retraction of the commissure of the lips

There are several hundred possible configurations with the variations of these elements.

Note the particular importance of the look. This is often the first degree of threat, but also the first degree of avoidance (look away). Play with the look, and the position of the gaze (which the dogs follow very well) and you will see how your dog is paying attention.

The postures can signal mood, or temperament: forward (approach tendency, assertiveness, ...) or backward (submission, avoidance, ...). It is very important to pay attention to one's own posture, one very often neglects this aspect in the way of communicating (even between us, it is called the non-verbal communication, precisely).

The port of the tail, also, provides information on the emotional state of the dog: a high tail port means more tense muscle tone, with a more active posture. Dogs with no tail are really disabled in their communication, and adapt themselves by sometimes stirring the entire rear end instead (I dedicate this replica to all the owners of Boxer, who will know what I'm talking about), which shows well the dog's extraordinary ability to adapt when it comes to communicating.

To interpret a posture, it is important to consider global configurations and context, rather than focusing on a particular element. For example, the famous posture call game is used in the game naturally, but we also find this posture in other situations.

We must understand that in the same way that humans hijack words according to their needs, the dog can divert a posture to use it in another context, with another meaning. It all depends on his learning, and he is particularly good at finding new ways of communicating.

Acoustic communication

Although this is not the main mode of communication of the dog, the vocalises serve a lot. The advantage of this communication is that it is noticeable at a distance, it can then be coupled with other means of communication. For example, a vocalise attracts attention, and a posture then sends the message. Humans are relatively good at identifying vocalizations.
Severe sounds are often associated with threats, an expression of aggressive motivation, aimed at distancing, in contrast to high-pitched sounds, rather characteristic of non-threatening states of distress (Darwin 1859, Ohala 1984, Morton 1977).
The vocal behavior of the dog is little studied or ignored, but we have a lot of speculation. Barking in particular, have many untested hypotheses. The frequency of emission is different according to the races, and the triggering threshold is variable but generally low in the dog; in other words, barking is "contagious".
For example, it has been shown that barking varies in sound power, duration and frequency depending on the context (isolation, play or disturbance, for the three tested). Barking is more serious in the "disturbance" context.
It is important to take into account the entire posturo-facial associated with the emission of vocalization, to try to understand the emotion. Communication is a set, a vocalise alone can not be easily interpreted.

Olfactory communication

Olfaction allows effective short-distance communication, but has some remanence in the environment (delayed communication). A dog can therefore send or receive a message with hours, see days between transmission and reception.
Body odors are produced by the sebaceous glands (oily, durable) or sweat glands.There is a lot of speculation about smell: for example, there is no scientific study that confirms that the dog is transmitting information about sex, mood, etc ... Although this is the one of the most deeply rooted myths in the canine community.
It is assumed that it is important and that there is a message because the dog attaches importance to it (like the sniffing of the ring bags), but we have nothing to prove it, and we know nothing about the content of the bag. message, or even its nature. The first step is to find the molecules that characterize the individuals, if we assume that the smells provide information on the identity ...
We could cite pheromones as the medium of the message, but the reality with pheromones is far from being known: the only pheromone identified so far is in rabbits, during lactation. This is due to the very restrictive definition of a pheromone.
Pheromones are characterized by 5 criteria (Beauchamps et al., 1976):
simple moleculespecific perception of the member of the speciesstereotyped and compound-specific response (the same molecule produces the same response all the time)well-defined answer (a molecule is enough to produce a behavioral response)independent learning response (one could say innate)The majority of molecules qualified as pheromones are odorant molecules, but either they do not lead to well-defined responses, or they are not specific to the species ... They are therefore not pheromones, stricto sensus.
For example, urine may have a communication function because the recipient's sexual receptivity state changes its preferences, with behaviors around the marking. But we have not identified in the urine compounds that meet the criteria above. There is a lack of scientific studies: it would be necessary to show a difference of chemical components in the odors between the individuals, then to make sure that the dogs perceive these differences.
Their abilities with the sense of smell are completely beyond our reach, as evidenced by recent discoveries in human medicine, with dogs able to sniff out and detect certain cancers in hospitals (Kdog project). It is therefore good that the odorant molecules carry information, which remains to know which ones and how.

Touch communication

Humans have a great propensity to touch things, which is not necessarily the case for animals. It is an apprenticeship for the dog given to him from his youth, but it is far from innate.
For the dog, tactile communication is restricted to gestures with the forelimbs (challenge or play interactions), or concerns the oral area (licking and biting).
On the other hand, as it is an often very positive interaction with us, the dog learns very quickly to ask for caresses. He quickly discovers the pleasant side of massage, and appreciates the simple fact that we take care of him (sometimes more than the caress itself). Social contacts are a fundamental need