All animals communicate to use through certain behaviour so getting annoyed with your dog will not help you understand what he or she is trying to tell you. Trying to understand what your dog is trying to tell you will change things for the better for both the dog owner and the dog.
Auditory Communication
We all may annoyed when the doggo will not stop his yapping, so instead of getting annoyed let’s understand what the yapping is all about. The most common auditory communications for a dog are barking, growling, and whimpering.
Barking: dogs tend to bark when they are alerting you of another human or animal in his territory, to say hello to you or to get your attention for play time.
Growling: growling is a defense warning or a signal that they are not happy and intend to attack if they are feeling threatened. Some dogs will growl to encourage their owners to play with them.
Whimpering: dogs whimper to show submission as a defence mechanism to either a human or another dog. Whimpering can be a display of anxiety, pain and attention seeking; it is the closest a dog can get to communication with a human.
Dogs like any other animal have ways to communicate with you, they bark, growl, whimper and often you will find a grunting dog that shows you their pleasure. As a dog owner you will slowly learn all the different noises your animal makes as their behaviour will reflect on the noises they make.
Visual Communication
The most important visual communication method is tail wagging; it will give you signs of happiness, fear and aggression. Dominant dogs usually have a very erect posture and have no problem looking you in the eye.
They try and make themselves bigger and will often bare teeth in order to show who is boss. The submissive dog is the opposite by trying to make themselves smaller and often rolling onto their backs allowing their stomachs to be exposed.
Olfactory Communication
The sense of smell is extremely acute and well developed in dogs. Urine marking is an olfactory communication that should not be confused with normal urination. If your dog starts marking areas of his territory he is showing you that something is wrong and he is in distress. There are many reasons for this that include, another animal is his territory, change of habitat or the loss of a family member or pet. Try clean-up the marked areas and keep your dog out of the area.
