Direction of Tail Wags Means Different Things (rottweilers, aggressive, basenji)
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I have always had dogs, frequently as many as four at a time. I adopted a pregnant female dog that just had puppies, we crossed path with my neighbor and her two dogs and they were doing fine, then her dog shifted his tail toward his owner who was on the left and my dog Dusty went bezerk. I am going to observe this more often when I am at the dog park. I wonder how dogs interpret a Rottweilers wag of their little nubs of tails? I know that I personally have a hard time reading the message of tailless dogs and since dogs and us have been associates for more than 27,000 years, heck that is the past two ice ages, we humans must also have imbedded in us the base ability to read and understand the messages of dogs, some people better than others.
We have Basenjis. Their tails are short and curled up and they don't wag them like other dogs. They also have ears that are always up. I have found that other dogs do tend to be more confused by them than regular tailed dogs. Sometimes, when my dogs want to play, the other dogs think they are being more aggressive than that it seems.
My Basset doesn't wag to the left or the right. He wags with his tail with it placed in different positions---up or down and anywhere in between. There are full wags and partial wags but always centered and going each direction right and left. Tail completely up in a full wag is happy and excited. Tail wag completely up in a partial wag means he's onto a scent. Tail wag that is down means he's not feeling well but he's trying to perk up to our encouragement. Halfway in between up and down means he doesn't feel good but he's super excited. If he's defensive, his tail is straight and doesn't wag. Sort of like how a pointer breed does when pointing.
We have Basenjis. Their tails are short and curled up and they don't wag them like other dogs. They also have ears that are always up. I have found that other dogs do tend to be more confused by them than regular tailed dogs. Sometimes, when my dogs want to play, the other dogs think they are being more aggressive than that it seems.
That's so true. ON one episode with an aggressive Great Dane, Cesar Millan was on the porch with him and a target dog on the sidewalk. Everyone was calm. Then he was showing the owners about ears. He himself took the ears in his hands and put them forward to demonstrate and the target dog went berserk! Which of course triggered the Dane to respond in kind.
That is an intriguing study, and I've been watching our Sweetie and her interaction with dogs at the dog park. Sure enough, and fortunately, they're all wagging to the right! I am totally fascinated. Here we have been living with dogs (as said above) for at least 27,000 years, and we're only finding out about this now? While dogs are perfectly capable of reading human body language. Hmmmmm...
I have always had dogs, frequently as many as four at a time. I adopted a pregnant female dog that just had puppies, we crossed path with my neighbor and her two dogs and they were doing fine, then her dog shifted his tail toward his owner who was on the left and my dog Dusty went bezerk. I am going to observe this more often when I am at the dog park. I wonder how dogs interpret a Rottweilers wag of their little nubs of tails? I know that I personally have a hard time reading the message of tailless dogs and since dogs and us have been associates for more than 27,000 years, heck that is the past two ice ages, we humans must also have imbedded in us the base ability to read and understand the messages of dogs, some people better than others.
All the more reason to let them have their tails. Dogs communicate so much with their tails, and IMO, nubs reduce those communications to garbled whispers.
They are probably communicating something about our species to the Mother ship when the tail goes to the left. Their tails are really an advanced antenna, for communication to their leaders about things they have learned about us during the observation. Dogs are really from another planet, here to monitor humans. Same as cats.
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