Inside Of A Dog Part 6

(b) I am talking to myself. In either case, (c) holds: the noises I am making appear not to be cla.s.sically communicative-for I do not have an audience who can understand me. Similarly, examples of poor communication by a dog may seem to undermine the notion that dogs communicate at all. But most researchers think that barks do have meaning, albeit one dependent on the context and even on the individual. Barking, especially alarm barking, is one of the clearest distinctions between dogs and other canid species. Wolves bark to convey alarm, but rarely, and they make more of a "woof" sound than anything like the protracted dog barking with which we are familiar. Dogs do not just bark more than wolves; they have developed numerous variations on the theme.

There are a handful of distinguishable barks, used reliably in a handful of distinguishable cases. Dogs bark to get attention, to warn of danger, in fear, as a greeting, in play, or even out of loneliness, anxiety, confusion, distress, or discomfort. The meaning is in the context of their use, but not only in the context: spectrograms of dog barks show that they are mixtures of the tones used in growls, in whimpers, and in yelps. By altering the prevalence of one tone over the others, the bark takes on a different character-a different gist.

Early research into dogs' vocalizations concluded that all dog barking was attention-getting barking. In fact they do attract attention, a.s.suming someone is close enough to hear them. But recent studies have made more subtle discriminations between barks. While in some way all barks come down to some manner of "attention-getting," one might as well say that we speak in order to be heard: true, but incomplete. For instance, when experimenters a.n.a.lyzed the spectrograms of thousands of dog barks during one of three contexts-a stranger ringing the doorbell, being locked outside, or in play-they found three distinct types of barks.

Stranger barks were the lowest in pitch and the harshest: they are nearly spat out. Less variable than the other types, stranger barks are well designed to send a message over a distance, something necessary if caught in a threatening situation alone. They can also be combined into "superbarks," concatenations of barks that together last much longer than the duration of barking in other contexts. The end result is a bark that most human listeners find to be aggressive. were the lowest in pitch and the harshest: they are nearly spat out. Less variable than the other types, stranger barks are well designed to send a message over a distance, something necessary if caught in a threatening situation alone. They can also be combined into "superbarks," concatenations of barks that together last much longer than the duration of barking in other contexts. The end result is a bark that most human listeners find to be aggressive.

The isolation barks isolation barks tended to be higher-frequency and more variable: some ranged from loud to soft and back again, some went from high to low. These barks are lobbed into the air one by one, sometimes with great intervals between them. They sound "fearful," people tend to say. tended to be higher-frequency and more variable: some ranged from loud to soft and back again, some went from high to low. These barks are lobbed into the air one by one, sometimes with great intervals between them. They sound "fearful," people tend to say.

Play barks, too, are high-frequency, but they happen more often one after the other than the isolation barks. They're directed at someone else, unlike isolation barks: at a dog or human playmate. There is considerable individual variation, of course: not every dog barks alike. The stranger bark of a small dog may come out as too, are high-frequency, but they happen more often one after the other than the isolation barks. They're directed at someone else, unlike isolation barks: at a dog or human playmate. There is considerable individual variation, of course: not every dog barks alike. The stranger bark of a small dog may come out as rar, rar rar, rar or or raoaw, raoaw, raoaw, raoaw, while a larger dog emits a capital-r while a larger dog emits a capital-r Rumph. Rumph.

These differences between bark types make evolutionary sense: the lowest sounds are used in threatening situations (again to appear bigger); higher sounds are entreaties-to friends, for companions.h.i.+p-and as such are submissive requests, not warnings. Differences between individual barkers indicate that barks might be used to affirm a dog's ident.i.ty, or reveal an a.s.sociation with a group (even the group me me and the woman at the end of my leash, and the woman at the end of my leash, rather than rather than these dogs I'm frolicking among these dogs I'm frolicking among). And barking together with others may be a form of social cohesion. Barking can be contagious, like the howl: one dog barking might prompt a chorus of barking dogs, all joined in their shared noisiness.

BODY AND TAIL.

When we approached people on the street, Pump set all her senses to looking; if she recognized them, her head would lower ever so slightly-looking up coyly as though over reading gla.s.ses-and she would wag her tail low. This was quite different from her approach of a dog she was smitten with: all upright, tail high, posture impeccable, wags soldierlike in their rhythm-or a dog friend-a looser,

janglier approach, and even an open-mouthed grab toward their face, or a gentle b.u.mp with her hip along their body.

You may be sitting down right now, folded into a comfy chair-or perhaps you're standing, straphanging on a train to work, book scrunched against another commuter's back. Most likely you don't mean mean anything by your sitting or standing, or when you walk or lie supine: it's just a posture of convenience or comfort. But in other contexts our very posture conveys information. A catcher crouches: he's prepared for a pitch. A parent crouches and opens his arms: he's inviting a child for a hug. Running when someone you know approaches, you suddenly stop and greet them; standing still when someone you know approaches, you suddenly turn and run. There can be meaning simply in the vigor or slouch of your body. For an animal with a limited vocal repertoire, posture is ever more important. And it appears that dogs use specific postures to make very specific statements. anything by your sitting or standing, or when you walk or lie supine: it's just a posture of convenience or comfort. But in other contexts our very posture conveys information. A catcher crouches: he's prepared for a pitch. A parent crouches and opens his arms: he's inviting a child for a hug. Running when someone you know approaches, you suddenly stop and greet them; standing still when someone you know approaches, you suddenly turn and run. There can be meaning simply in the vigor or slouch of your body. For an animal with a limited vocal repertoire, posture is ever more important. And it appears that dogs use specific postures to make very specific statements.

There is a language of the body, formed of phonemes made from rumps, heads, ears, legs, and tails. Dogs know how to translate this language intuitively; I learned it after watching hundreds of hours of dogs interacting with each other. We must look like such stiffs to dogs, who can express everything from playfulness to aggression to amorous intent by changing the shape of their body and its alt.i.tude. By contrast, we are inhibited straight-backeds, mostly stationary or traveling forward with little excess movement. Occasionally-heavens-we turn a head or arm flamboyantly to the side.

But man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master.-Charles Darwin

For dogs, posture can announce aggressive intent or shrinking modesty. To simply stand erect, at full height, with head and ears up, is to announce readiness to engage, and perhaps to be the prime mover in the engagement. Even the hair between the shoulders or at the rump-the hackles hackles-may be standing at attention, serving not just as a visual signal of arousal but also releasing the odor of the skin glands at the base of the hairs. To exaggerate the whole effect, a dog might stand not just up but over over another dog, head or paws on his back. That's about as declarative a statement as you can make that you are feeling dominant. The opposite body posture, crouching with head down, ears down, and tail tucked away, is submissive. To lie all the way down and expose the belly is even more so.* another dog, head or paws on his back. That's about as declarative a statement as you can make that you are feeling dominant. The opposite body posture, crouching with head down, ears down, and tail tucked away, is submissive. To lie all the way down and expose the belly is even more so.*

This principle of ant.i.thesis ant.i.thesis-that opposing postures communicate opposing emotions-describes much of the expressive scope of dogs. Facial expressions, most visible in the mouth and ears, mind this principle, too. The mouth sweeps from closed to open and relaxed, to open with lips raised, snout wrinkled, and teeth bared. A dog's "grin," with jaw closed, is submissive; as the mouth is opened, the arousal increases; and if the teeth are exposed, the look gets aggressive. Coming full circle, a wide-open mouth with teeth mostly covered-a yawn-is not a sign of boredom, as often a.s.sumed by a.n.a.logy with our own yawning; instead, it may indicate anxiety, timidity, or stress, and is used by dogs to calm themselves or others. The ears can also go through these gymnastics: they can be p.r.i.c.ked, relaxed and down, or folded tightly along the head. Eyeballing another dog directly can be threatening or aggressive; by contrast, looking away is submissive-an attempt to quell one's own anxiety and the other dog's arousal. In other words, in each case there is a range from one extreme to another, representing variation in intensity along an emotional continuum, from relaxed to aroused in fear or alarm.

None of these is a static symbol-or, if it is, its being static is meaningful. Holding an erect posture, motionless, is a quiet way of putting an exclamation point on the posture. It exaggerates the tenseness of the communication. For the most part, postures are taken, and moved through. The tail, especially, is a limb of movement. It is to science's great discredit that no one has done a thorough investigation of the meaning of every wag of the dog's tail.

As a puppy her tail was trim, an arrow of soft black fur. This turned out not to be the destiny of her tail at all: it grew into an incredible banner of a tail, with extravagant feathering that matted and gathered leaves. It was bent at the tip from a disagreement with a car door when she was young. She brandished it when excited or delighted, curved to a sickle with the tip pointing at her back. When lying down, she drummed it happily on the ground at my approach. Her tail registered her exhaustion in a low-hanging straight pose; her disinterest in a nosy dog by tucking between her legs. Most of the time as we walked together, it hung loosely down, curving jauntily toward its tip, and merrily swished to and fro. I loved to approach her slowly, stalking her, and prompt her tail to quiver into wagging.

One of the difficulties in deciphering the language of tails is the great variation in tails among dogs. The flamboyant plumage of a golden retriever contrasts mightily with the tight corkscrew of the pug. Dogs wear tails long and rigid, stumpy and curled, hanging heavily or perpetually perked. The wolf tail is in some ways an average of the various breed tails: it is a long, slightly feathered tail, held naturally slightly down. Early ethologists who did a reckoning of wolf tail postures identified at least thirteen different tail carriages, conveying thirteen distinguishable messages. As per the ant.i.thesis thesis, tails held high indicate confidence, self-a.s.sertion, or excitement from interest or aggression, while low-hanging tails indicate depression, stress, or anxiety. An erect tail also exposes the a.n.a.l region, allowing a bold dog to air his odor signature. By contrast, a long tail held so low as to curl back between the legs, closing off the rump, is actively submissive and fearful. When a dog is simply waiting around, his tail is relaxed, hanging low, dropped down but not rigid. A tail gently lifted is a sign of mild interest or alertness.

But it is not as simple as tail height, for the tail is not just held, it is wagged. Wagging does not translate as simple happiness. A high, stiffly wagging tail can be a threat, especially when accompanied by an erect posture. Quickly wagging a dropped, low tail is another sign of submission. This is the tail of the dog who has just been caught finis.h.i.+ng off the last of your shoes. The vigor of the wag is roughly indicative of the intensity of the emotions. A neutral tail wagging lightly is interested but tentative. A loose, lively whisking tail accompanies the noseled search for a ball lost in high gra.s.ses or an odor trail discovered on the ground. The familiar happy wag is incredibly different from all of these: the tail is held above or out from the body and strongly draws rough arcs in the air behind it. Unmistakable delight. Even non-wagging is meaningful: dogs tend to still their tails when attending carefully to a ball in your hand or waiting for you to tell them what's happening next.

Researchers interested in the brain of the dog accidentally discovered something about the tail of the dog along the way: the dog wags asymmetrically. On average, dogs' wags tend more strongly to the right when they suddenly see their owners-or even anything else of some interest: another person, or a cat. When presented with an unfamiliar dog, dogs still wag-more that tentative wag than the happy wag-but tending to the left. You might not be able to see this in your own dog unless you watch them wag in slow-motion video playback (which I highly recommend)-or unless your dog is one of those who wag less back-and-forth than round-and-round, inclining to the side. Consider yourself lucky to be wagged at with such clear-cut enthusiasm.

Pump does a full-body shake: it starts in her head and rolls down her body, s.h.i.+mmering out through her tail. It is like a punctuation mark that has yet to be discovered. She shakes to end an episode, when she's unsure, and sometimes when she's just ambling along.

The dog uses his body expressively: communication writ through movement. Even the moments between interactions are marked by movement: as when a dog does a full-body shake, his skin twisting over his frame, to indicate his finis.h.i.+ng one activity and moving on to another. Not all dogs have hackles that visibly raise with pique, long tails to ostentatiously wag, or ears that raise with interest. The fabulously ropy-furred komondor approaches other dogs with what we must a.s.sume is his head, but neither eyes nor ears are visible underneath his long locks. In breeding dogs to have particular looks that we find agreeable, we are limiting their possibilities for communicating. Just as we might expect, but would rather not confront, a dog with a docked tail has, thereby, a docked repertoire of things he can say.

Research looking at the range and rate of signals used by ten physically dissimilar breeds found just this. Comparing the behavior of dogs from the Cavalier King Charles spaniel to the French bulldog to the Siberian husky, there was a clear relations.h.i.+p between the breed appearance and the number of signals they used. Those animals that had been most changed physically in domestication from wolves-the King Charles, at the extreme-sent the fewest signals. These pedomorphic pedomorphic or or neotenous neotenous dogs, who retain more features of juvenile members of canid species into adulthood, look least like adult wolves. The huskies, which have the most wolflike features and are genetically closer to dogs, who retain more features of juvenile members of canid species into adulthood, look least like adult wolves. The huskies, which have the most wolflike features and are genetically closer to Canis lupus, Canis lupus, do the most wolflike signals. do the most wolflike signals.

Given that many bodily signals provide information about one's status, strength, or intent, the necessity for dogs to send these signals is presumably diminished in a world where humans chaperone dogs through life. But the same signals used to convince a dominant animal of benign intent may also be used to communicate information to humans. Walking through the city, I turn a blind corner and nearly step on an unfamiliar dog pulling on a long leash. Seeing me, she crouches, wags her tail furiously between her legs, and licks toward my face. It may have begun as a submissive gesture, but now it is adorable.

INADVERTENT AND INTENT.

After sleeping late and enduring the slow pace of my morning rituals, Pump's first move when we get outside never varies. She takes two steps out the door and unceremoniously squats. She crouches deeply, fully committed to the pose, with only her tail-curled high out of the way-pulling her body up. The torrent of urine released (surely record-breaking this time) seems accompanied by a relaxing of the muscles of her face-and by a growing guilt on my own that I made her wait so long. She watches the stream of her own urine wandering by her as it finds cracks in the sidewalk in which to divert itself cleanly.

As much as is being said with a bark, snarl, or wagging tail, vocalization and posture are not the only media of communication for dogs. Neither is a match for the informational possibilities of smells. Urination, as we saw earlier, is the means of odorant communication most conspicuous to us. It might be hard to believe that the release of the bladder is a "communicative act" right up there with a polite conversation between friends or a politician orating before his const.i.tuents. At some level, it is like both of these: it is part of normal dog sociality, and it can also be a bellowing self-promotion writ on a hydrant.

You might balk at calling the moist message left high on a lowly fire hydrant the same kind of communication that humans use-and not just because they are talking out of their rumps, not their faces. Crucially, we communicate (most of the time) with intention: intention: rather than yammering out loud to our own left hand, we tend to direct our communications to other people-people who are near enough to hear us, not otherwise distracted, who know the language, and can understand what we're saying. Intention distinguishes communication done with others in mind from the automatic rather than yammering out loud to our own left hand, we tend to direct our communications to other people-people who are near enough to hear us, not otherwise distracted, who know the language, and can understand what we're saying. Intention distinguishes communication done with others in mind from the automatic oof! oof! uttered on being hit in the belly, blus.h.i.+ng at a compliment, a mosquito's constant buzzing, or the unmindful bit of information imparting done by traffic lights and flags at half-mast. uttered on being hit in the belly, blus.h.i.+ng at a compliment, a mosquito's constant buzzing, or the unmindful bit of information imparting done by traffic lights and flags at half-mast.

Urine marking is peeing with intention. The morning's blissful release relieves the strain on the bladder, but most of the time some is held back for later use in marking. Presumably the urine is the same urine: there's no evidence of an independent channel or means by which to modify the odor they are emitting. But marking behavior differs in a few key ways. First, in most adult males, and some gender-bending females, marking is characterized by a prominently raised leg. There are individual and contextual variations on the so-called "raised-leg display," from a modest retraction of the rear leg up toward the body, to hoisting the leg up above the hip points, above vertical-certainly also a visual display for any other dogs in the vicinity. Both allow for a directional flow of urine, aimed to land at a conspicuous site. (One can squat and mark, too, although it is a quieter affair, perhaps for messages better whispered than shouted.)

Second, the bladder is not emptied when marking; urine is doled out a little at a time, allowing for greater distribution of scent over the course of the dog's travels. If you've left your dog indoors long enough that he races outside to squat, this urgency might preempt his ability to cache some urine for later marking. Thus the fruitless raised-leg displays you may witness, waving dryly at bushes, lampposts, and trash cans.

Finally, dogs usually urine mark only after spending some time sniffing the area. This is what elevates the odor exchange from Lorenz's notion of flag planting to a kind of conversation. Researchers keeping careful tally of dogs' marking behavior over time found that who has marked before them, the time of year, and who is nearby all affect where and when they mark.

Interestingly, these message bouquets aren't left indiscriminately: not every surface is marked. Watch a dog sniff his way down the street: he will sniff more locations than he will squirt. This indicates that not every message is the same-and the message this dog will leave may be intended for certain audiences only. Countermarking-covering old urine with new-is a common behavior of male dogs, when the old urine is that of less dominant male dogs. Everyone's marking increases when there is a new dog around.

If it is not territorial, what is the message in the mark? The first hint is that puppies don't urine mark: the communication must have to do with adult concerns. From the position of the a.n.a.l glands and the compounds in the urine, we know that they are at least saying something about who they are: their odor is their ident.i.ty. This is a fine message, but it is probably fairly unintentional. I may communicate something about who I am by merely walking into a room and being seen, but the very fact of my person is not a continuous, intentional communication about my ident.i.ty (except when I was a kid and dressed to be seen).

What does look intentional in this communication is that dogs don't bother to say it if there's no one else around. Dogs who are kept penned by themselves spend very little time marking. The males rarely lift a leg to urinate, and neither s.e.x bothers to deposit just a small amount. Dogs kept in similar-sized enclosures with other dogs mark much more frequently, and they mark regularly, every day. The Indian feral dogs marked to audiences-and audiences of the opposite s.e.x. This makes sense if the message conveyed is about s.e.x: seeking it oneself, or declaring oneself fit to be seeked. They did the most raised-leg displays (even without urinating) when other dogs were present. A leg held high only gets someone else's attention if someone else is already there to attend to it.

It also makes sense if the mark is communication for communication's sake: a comment, an opinion, a strongly held belief. There is no scientific evidence that it is so, but it is consistent with communication done only to an audience. Researchers have found that dogs raised in isolation make many fewer communicative noises than those raised with other dogs. When finally around others, though, they begin producing vocalizations at the same rate that the socialized dogs do. In other words, they speak when there is someone to speak to. to.

Just as they mark with intention, so too do dogs read intention in our markings: in our gestures. As we will see in the next chapters, they interpret the body language of humans with the attention they bring to reading each other. As a young child toddles toward a treasured toy, a dog can see where she is going and get there first. A turn of the head in thought garners little attention, but a turn of the head that looks at the door-there is intention in that turn. And dogs know it. They realize that there is a difference between gazing toward the door and turning to look at the clock on the wall; they can distinguish a finger pointing toward hidden food, and a point done while lifting one's arm to check a watch. We speak loudly with our bodies.

A confession: a dog has dictated this entire chapter to me. She sat by my chair, head on my foot, and patiently waited while I struggled to translate her words to the page. It is from her that the insights of the book come, from her that evocations spring, from her that the scenes and images and umwelt emerge.

Alas, it is not quite so. But to see the remarkable number of volumes purportedly written by dogs one must imagine that this is what we all want: the story straight out of the dog's mouth-but in our native tongue, of course. At the end of the nineteenth century, a peculiar kind of autobiography began to appear in bookshops: it was the "memoir" of your cat, your old dog, or the animal gone missing in that winter storm. This form, narrated by talking animals, could be considered the first prose attempt to get at the point of view of the dog. When I read one of these-and there are many to choose from, among even such writers as Rudyard Kipling and Virginia Woolf-a strange discontent washes over me. It's a sham: there is no perspective of the dog in them. Instead, it is a dog with the human's voice box transplanted to the dog's snout. Imagining that dogs' thoughts are but cruder forms of human discourse does the dog a disservice. And despite their marvelous range and extent of communication, it is the very fact that they do not use language that makes me especially treasure dogs. Their silence can be one of their most endearing traits. Not muteness: absence of linguistic noise. There is no awkwardness in a shared silent moment with a dog: a gaze from the dog on the other side of the room; lying sleepily alongside each other. It is when language stops that we connect most fully.

Dog-eyed

It takes all of six seconds for Pump to go from masterful to maladroit. In the first five she flawlessly navigates the brambles and bushes and thick-trunked trees that web the opening of the forest into field to catch a fast-moving tennis ball. It thonks off a tree and she's there to nearly vacuum it into her mouth. An apparition of a dog tears in out of nowhere, a racing blur of white fur and bark. Pump notes him and hurtles away, evading this stealer of tennis b.a.l.l.s. In that sixth second, she stops, suddenly adrift. She's lost track of me. I watch her search: erect body, head high. I'm within sight; I smile at her. She looks at and past me, not seeing me. Instead, she spots the large, limping, heavy-coated man who came through with the white tear. She takes off after him. I must run to retrieve her. The moment before Pump was all-seeing; now she's a fool.

There is an intrinsic ranking of the modes by which we humans sense the world-and vision is winner by a long shot. Eyes arouse great interest in human psychologists; they betoken much more than one might imagine just from their physical form. However pretty a nose one might have, however close the forehead is to the brain, neither our noses nor foreheads nor cheeks nor ears are granted such importance.

We are visual animals. There's barely a challenge for second, either: audition is part of nearly every experience we have. Olfaction and touch might duke it out for third, and taste runs a distant fifth. Not that each of these isn't important to us on any particular occasion. The loveliness of presentation of, say, a tiered wedding cake would be undercut if vinegar replaced the antic.i.p.ated taste of unmitigated sweetness. Or if any odor besides that of baked goods emanated from the cake-or if the first bite was not soft and yielding, but crunchy or slimy. Still, on most occasions we first direct our gaze to a new scene or object. If we notice something unusual or unexpected on the sleeve of our jacket, we turn to examine it with our eyes. Vision would have to really fail to provide any information before we decide to learn about it by inhaling it closely or taking a bold lick.

The order of operations is turned upside-down for dogs. Snout beats eyes and mouth beats ears. Given the olfactory acuity of dogs, it makes sense that vision plays an accessory role. When a dog turns his head toward you, it is not so much to look at you with his eyes; rather, it is to get his nose to look at you. The eyes just come along for the ride. You may be a recipient of an imploring gaze by a dog across the room right now. But can dogs even see what we do?

In many ways, the visual system of a dog-a subsidiary means to look at the world-is very much like our own. Its demotion behind other senses, in fact, may allow dogs to see details with their eyes that we overlook with ours.

One might well ask what a dog would even need eyes for. They can navigate and find food with their remarkable noses. Anything that needs closer examination goes right in the mouth. And they can identify each other through that sensory apparatus squished between their mouth and nose, the vomeronasal organ. As it turns out, they have at least two critical uses of their eyes: to complement their other senses and to see us. The natural history of the dog eye, seen in the story of their forebears, wolves, explains the context in which their vision evolved. It is a happy and transformative side effect that this has made them good watchers of human beings.

Just one element of the lives of wolves goes a long way to explaining the eyes they have evolved: eating. Most of their food runs away. Not only that, it is often camouflaged or living in the relative safety of herds. It is active-and thus findable-at dusk, dawn, or night. So wolves, like all predators, have evolved in response to their prey. As important as scent is, it cannot serve as the only indicator of the presence of prey, as air currents send odors on circuitous paths before they reach the nose. Odors are volatile: if smell lies on a surface, a sensitive nose can track it specifically; but if it is on the wind, the odor appears more like a cloud that could have come from one of a thousand sources. Rapidly moving prey outrun their own odor. Light waves, by contrast, are transmitted reliably through open air. So after catching a whiff, wolves use their sight to locate their prey. Many prey animals are camouflaged to blend in with their environment. This camouflage is betrayed in motion, however. So wolves are adept at spotting a change in the visual scene that indicates that something is moving. Finally, prey animals are often active at dusk or dawn, a compromise of lighting: easier to hide, harder to see. In response, wolves developed eyes that are especially sensitive in low light, and are especially good at noticing motion in that light.

Her eyes are deep pools of brown and black. It is hard to see which way they gaze, they are so dark-but it also makes any glimpse of her irises delightful, as though seeing inside her soul. Her eyelashes only became apparent when they grayed. Her eyebrows are also essentially invisible, but the effect of their moving-as with her head on the floor, to follow me walking across the room-is visible. In sleep, in dreams, her eyes scanned the world under their lids. Even closed, the lids reveal a bit of pink peeking out, as though she were keeping prepared to open her eyes at once should something important happen nearby.