A kid barrels through the front door, backpack still half unzipped, and before “Hi, boy!” is even out of their mouth, the dog already looks like he’s lost control of his own back half.…
A tucked tail means a scared dog. That’s one of the first pieces of canine body language most people learn, and plenty of the time it works. A stranger reaches toward your dog too quickly, his body drops, and the tail disappears between his legs.…
Your dog spots someone he knows across the yard. His head comes up, his tail rises above his back, and he trots over with a loose stride. The tail stays high as it sweeps broadly from side to side.…
A dog’s tail swinging harder to one side than the other looks, at first, like nothing more than momentum. A body part moving fast enough is bound to favor one side occasionally.…
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.…