Your dog has walked this sidewalk dozens of times, but today somebody has left a large plastic lawn decoration beside a driveway.
He sees it before you do. His pace shortens.…
You walk into a busy park and notice a dog near the entrance showing his teeth. For half a second, the picture seems simple enough. Teeth mean warning. Give him room.…
Watch the same dog at two points in one day. At breakfast, the kibble scoop comes out and his tongue slips across his lips before the bowl even reaches the floor.…
You ask your dog for something at close range. He looks at you for a second, then turns his head away.
It can feel pointed. He heard you. He was looking right at you.…
At the garden gate, one dog greets a familiar neighbor with loose shoulders, an easy wag, and eyes that narrow until they look almost sleepy. Across town, another dog sits beside the sofa with one eye squeezed nearly shut, blinking hard and rubbing at her face.…
Whale eye is the sudden appearance of visible white around a dog’s eye, often as the eye widens or the dog keeps watching something while turning her head away.…
Here’s the strange thing about the guilty look: in one experiment, the dogs who had actually behaved themselves sometimes looked the guiltiest.
Researchers asked owners to tell their dogs not to eat a treat, then had the owners leave the room.…
Your dog comes in from the rain, shakes his head twice, and carries on. Later, someone briefly handles his ears, he pulls away, gives one quick shake, and walks off.…
One second, your dog is moving normally toward a visitor. The person bends down, reaches toward his head, and the movement stops. His feet stay planted. His mouth closes.…
Humans put a lot of meaning into eye contact. We use it to show attention, interest, confidence, and sometimes honesty. So when a dog looks away, it can feel significant before we’ve even looked at the rest of her body.…