Thursday, January 21, 2016

Zoe Hates Puppies! A Photograhic Lesson In Canine Body Language

Double Trouble!

Today I have some photographs of canine body language to share with everyone! Zoe has always sort of disliked puppies, they are just not her thing. She thinks they are really annoying and after dealing with too many adolescent dogs who do not listen and are rude, she doesn't like putting up with them. We had a young puppy run up on us when we were hiking and these are some of the photos I got of them communicating with each other.

NOTE: This puppy ran up to us when his owner was all the way across the park and he was not under any sort of control. This is considered an off leash trail/park but dogs are supposed to be under voice control. The greeting between the dogs only lasted 5-10 seconds before my husband called our dogs away. I try to never put my dogs in situations where they will fail and because we know Zoe isn't thrilled with puppies we kept their interaction very brief. Luckily the puppy got the memo immediately and wanted to be my friend instead. 


You can totally see how clear Zoe is with the photo above. She was not thrilled with this stranger running up on us. Her eyes are kind of intense, she's got "whale eye" (the white part of her eye showing), she's got a bit of a mohawk on her butt and her tail is really high. She's clearly saying "you better not mess with me, kid!"

Phoenix is also pretty worried about the greeting, in the first photo she's pretty much "who the hell are you and what do you want" but she is a lot more tolerant of puppy shenanigans and calms down quickly. If you notice in the second photo, Phoenix has one paw raised and that is often a sign of anxiety and/or being unsure.

The puppy has great body language, too. He's telling both of my dogs that he is not a threat. His ears are back, he has whale eye and is body is a nice curve. His tail is also loose. 


In this shot you can see both Zoe and Phoenix's faces. They are clearly unimpressed with him. Phoenix has a bit of a whale eye, too! You can see the total change in the puppy when he spotted me! He's not showing any aggression with baring his teeth he's giving me what's called a "submissive grin". He really wanted to be my friend! His ears are back, he has whale eye and he's screaming "I'm not a threat, I'm friendly but a little nervous, will you be my friend?"


I'm so sad that I didn't get these photos completely in focus but I think you can see the differences in the puppy's body language pretty well! After dealing with those grumpy females, he spots me and he's completely relaxes, his eyes are soft and he's smiling at me.


Here's another adorable shot of this guy. I loved him and wanted to steal him! It's not very often that I find a dog who is good at communicating with my dogs and listening to what they are "saying" too. He was perfect!


My husband calls our dogs away and the puppy's owner makes an attempt at getting him back.


After the owner of the puppy finally collected him, you can see that Zoe was still listening for him. The owner was directly behind Zoe and sort of to the left. Her ear is back and she's paying attention to what is going on behind her. She also still has a butt mohawk but her tail has gone back to being more loose. You can also tell by looking at her face that she is still unimpressed. 


Once the puppy was gone and the doggie Dad broke out some treats, the girls were much happier! 

I think dog body language is fascinating and it's so important for us as owners to be able to tell what our dogs are saying! If you would like to learn more about dog body language, Modern Canine Training made a great video on the subject: Understanding Dog Body Language (Zoe and Phoenix make a cameo at the end). I would recommend checking it out!




30 comments:

  1. Body language is the most important key to reading and understanding your dog. Puppies can be annoying sometimes, but can't believe she has such a dislike for them.

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    1. Yep, you're totally right. Body language is very important. When I first got Zoe, I made a lot of mistakes with her. As a result of that, she's had a lot of bad experiences with adolescent dogs. I can't really blame her for not wanting to put up with them.

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  2. Yup. Seen all that before. Jasper is not very tolerant of puppies. He finds them rude as well. They don't listen to his body language. I always try to intervene or call him away as well.

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    1. That's great that you know that Jasper doesn't like them! Honestly, I don't have a lot of patients myself for rude dogs so I don't blame our dogs at all for not wanting to put up with them!

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  3. Very fascinating set of pictures! They truly tell the story and you can really read the body language even without the descriptions.

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  4. Delilah will tolerate puppies, she's actually quite good with them, except if they're bulldogs, neither one of my dogs like bulldogs.

    Sampson likes most dogs, it's just neither my dogs or any of the dogs we meet know the proper way to greet. Mostly they all just run up to each other and there is lots of raised hair and sometimes a bit of snarking.

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    1. That's good they are tolerant of puppies! It's interesting that they don't like bulldogs! My dogs are kind of wary and sort of scared of the brachy dogs, too! I think it's all the snorting and chortling they do that weirds them out so bad.

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  5. Great great post. I'm going to be sharing this on my page, because so many people can learn from it. Thank you. I wish I could have you at my house to help me better read my dogs. I do a great job, but I think there are small things you pointed out here that I could benefit from when reading my dogs.

    Thank you again.

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    1. Thank you! I'm really glad you liked it! If you search "calming signals" on youtube there are tons of fascinating videos to watch (some are even slowed down so you can really see it) to learn the signals. If you're really interested in learning, I'd watch those videos and then if you have a dog park in your area make a solo trip there and just watch the dogs. That's how I learned, except that I had my dog with me and she had bad experiences because of it.

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  6. Great post! Most owners don't monitor their dogs body language, it sure can say a lot! :)

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    1. Thank you! I definitely agree! I wish more owners would pay attention!

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  7. You can indeed tell what your dogs are thinking/feeling by watching their body language. You have to watch when you're out and about too.

    Have a woof woof day you two. My best to your wonderful mom. ☺

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  8. Hoomans should study OUR body language as much as we study theirs!

    Keep Calm & Bark On!

    Murphy & Stanley

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  9. Well at least that puppy's person seems to be doing a decent job of allowing the pup to learn good social skills. But now is the perfect time to work on calling your dog back to you in the dog park. It's a really valuable skill.

    I've known other dogs who hated puppies. There was a Great Pyrennes in my neighborhood who lived outdoors during the day and watched the world go by his fence. The only time I ever saw him get ruffled was when we tried to walk by with a puppy. I learned quickly to change our route when I was fostering puppies.

    So Zoe is not the only one. :)

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    1. Thanks, Pam!

      I really believe that dog parks and off leash areas are the worst places for puppies to learn social skills. From my own experience, anyone can bring any sort of dog to those places. Zoe has more bad experiences from those places than good ones and she has lasting issues from it. The best place to socialize a puppy is with dogs you know who won't traumatize the puppy and puppy socialization classes with experienced trainers.

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  10. Blueberry tolerates puppies really well. That's the only time I don't worry too much about a bad reaction from either dog when it is clearly a puppy. Doesn't even matter what size the puppy is - she just knows and is always willing to meet and is exceedingly patient even with rude puppies that paw at her or jump on her head.

    That is one cute puppy! I really love his markings!

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    1. That's so awesome that Blueberry is tolerant of puppies! I agree with you that puppy was adorable!

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  11. Great job! I love the story telling and photo's! Ziva hates puppies too, Dante on the other hand is happy with anyone who wants to play with him. But he's also an adult so if someone doesn't want to play, he's good at reading the signals and leaving grumpy pants alone. :-)

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  12. Learning your pet's body language is really important. My cats have very clear body language (at least in my eyes). Zoe and Phoenix did a great job of being patient with that puppy! I'm glad that at least one dog parent was on top of this.

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  13. Fantastic idea! Pike is similar to Zoe with absolutely HATING puppies (he's not big on most dogs, but puppies just...piss him off). It's so nice to find a dog with appropriate responses to uncomfortable dogs!

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  14. It is so important to understand our dogs body language!!
    This was great!
    ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

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  15. Puppies can be so overwhelming! That one is so cute though, and hopefully this was great experience for him (though if I had a puppy at a dog park I'd be monitoring him much more closely!).
    Great information here...I am always trying to read my dogs' body language and it can be challenging.

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  16. Hi hi hi! Ojo here! Cobi doesn't like puppies either. My person says I am very tolerant, but she usually helps me get away. Puppies can be very annoying! It is good that you guys were tolerant too, and then you got treats! Hurray!

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