Dog Language

DOG LANGUAGE, An Ecyclopedia of Canine Behavior

by Roger Abrantes, illustrated by Alice Rasmussen

1997, Wakan Tanka publishers, $20 paperback

(commentary by Pam Green)

This is a wonderful book to have on hand whenever you need to interpret canine communications -- or teach someone else the basics of doing so. The drawings are superb : the artist catches the nuances of expression marvelously.

The first chapters summarize Abrante's views as to the evolution of lupine & canine social behavior, especially the crucial canine mechanisms of dominence displays and submission & pacification displays which enable these highly aggressive and well armed species (wolf & dog) to live together and hunt together cooperatively and (normally) without hurting one another. The rest of the book is arranged as an encyclopedia of terminology with copious illustrations and cross-refferences. there is inevitably a lot of redundancy with this organization, but it ensures that you dont miss anything. Abrants is an ethologist and is scientific director at the Institute of Ethology at the Høng Agricultural School, Denmark.

Of special value to the practical dog person are the wonderful illustrations, especially those that would sensitize you to the various degrees and mixtures of emotion in facial and bodily expression, and those illustrating interactions between individuals with varying levels of these emotions. I find especially interesting the illustrations and discussions of all the various displays and gestures that are "pacifying" or expressing friendly and submissive intention. Abrantes emphasizes that much of this dog language is learned, the innate infantile gestures of the baby puppy being modified into adult gestures of pacification and submission. (It has occurred to me that in our pet dogs, some of these displays have been taken to yet another level of meaning, in that our pets often go from expressing friendlyness to expressing desire for petting to expressing demaned for petting . Thus the pacifying nose nudge from one dog to another becomes the noe inserted under a person's arm or hand and then flipped upwards with more or less force -- something I call the "shovel snout" -- as a way of soliciting or demanding petting. Likewise the pacifying paw lift can escalate into a paw placed or jabbed onto a person to solicit or demand attention. Perhaps with domestication our dogs have become more and more flexible inlearning to modify their dog-to-dog language in order to get their human co-habitants to do what they want.) Likewise the puppy must learn to heed the various warnings of dominence and correction from the momma-wolf and pappa-wolf and the other adults, as well as learning to trust the adults expressions of acceptance, ie of benign dominence. By the way Abrantes argues that it is beneficial for our puppies if there is a stable adult male dog in the household who is allowed to take on the paternal role. I have heard the same from several breeders who have tried doing so and observed the results carefully.

I think it would be wonderful if we had an interactive Web site on which were displayed various drawings , in which the student could be asked "what do you think is happening here?" and give an answer and then immediately get feedback on the correctness of that interpretation -- perhaps with highlighting of the details of the expression contradicting or modifying the student's guess and detailled explanation of these details. Or let the student click on some part of the drawing to get a detailed explanation and oppertunity to see how those details change as motivation changes. Or let the student click to see the same expression in a different breed of dog. For instance, in the Bouvier the facial hair obscuring lips and eyes, the lessened expressiveness of cropped ears, and the drastically lessened expressiveness of the docked tail, all work to make the dog much much harder to read than are those breeds that adhere to the general wolf-coyote form. This book would lend itself well to being the basis for such an instructional Web site. In the meanwhile, it should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand dog behavior and dog comunication -- that of course means everyone who deals with dogs in any way, from the aspiring dog trainer or behaviorist to the postman or meter-reader who merely wants to keep body parts undamaged by the dogs encountered on the job.