Dog Behavior

What Your Dog’s Eyes Communicate

Can you spot the different ways your dog uses his/her eyes to send you messages? Pain can cause a squinty look to your dog’s eyes. If your dog’s eyes appear larger than usual, it could mean s/he feels threatened or stressed. Larger or smaller eyes can mean aggression. If the whites are showing (called whale […]

Dog Behavior

Is Your Puppy Too Aggressive

Puppies are lots of fun, they play hard but sometimes their sharp little teeth can hurt. But how can you tell if your puppy is behaving overly aggressive? There are dogs, fortunately very, very few, who appear to be born too aggressive. While unusual, there are signs to watch for. When interacting with your puppy, […]

Dog Behavior

Why Dogs Lean on Their Humans

Some dogs like to lean on people. Usually larger dogs will sit close and lean into you with much of their weight. A major reason some dogs lean is that they just want to get as close as possible to the person(s) they love. Dogs once lived in packs making them naturally social animals. Some […]

Dog Behavior

Resource Guarding Dogs

In another articule, “Why is Your Dog Growling at You”, I wrote about one of my dogs, Murphy, who guarded an old toy that I found partially buried in my front garden. My gentle Murphy went so far as to growl and lunge when I didn’t read her body language correctly. In the 6 years […]

Dog Behavior

Why Dogs Sniff Butts

We’ve all been embarrassed at times with our dog’s actions and sniffing butts is high on that list. Of course this behavior is perfectly normal to our dogs and an acceptable greeting to them. Butts and yes, crotches too, give a dog lots of information about the “smellee.” These areas have highly concentrated odors. A […]

Dog Behavior

Why Dogs Lift Their Legs to Urinate

Renowned veterinarian Dr. Mart Becker likened a dog’s leg lifting to the Rockettes of New York City Radio City Music Hall fame. But they (the dogs) wouldn’t make a very attractive chorus line. Most male dogs do lift their leg to urinate, but some females do too. Intact female dogs will sometimes lift their leg […]

Dog Behavior

Senior Dog Behavioral Changes

As our dogs age, we notice physical changes. They may not see or hear as well and have joint problems. But their behavior may also be affected. Here are some signs to be aware of. Behaviors that are repeated over and over could be a sign of obsessive, compulsive disorder or a symptom of anxiety. […]

Dog Behavior

Dogs and Mean People

Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have run tests on 18 dogs to see their response who are mean to their guardians. Their interest is in discovering whether dogs sense when people are responding what they feel is inappropriate to their humans. The dogs were divided into three groups and each dog guardian was accompanied […]

Dog Behavior

Why a Dog Rolls in Stinky Stuff

You must have wondered many times why your dog loves to roll in stuff that you would avoid like the plague. So why do dogs look for the smelliest stuff to anoint themselves with. There are many ideas put forth, but who really knows….except your dog. One suggestion is that dogs are placing their scent […]

Dog Behavior

Do Dogs Recognize Our Facial Expressions

The more we know about our best pals, our dogs, the more we realize what incredible beings they are. Some researchers believe that the longer they share their lives with us, the more they learn to mimic some of our behaviors (thank goodness only the best ones). Researchers in Vienna, Austria have recently discovered what […]