Learn to Speak Dog and Cat: Step 1 to a Better Relationship with Your Pet
Even Experienced Pet Parents Need This
Something important to acknowledge for anyone living with or working with animals—humans are not born with an innate understanding of how other species communicate. We spend most of our lives learning how to communicate with others of our own species, and yet miscommunication is rampant. If we speak the same language and are raised within the same culture, we may make fewer communication errors. If we speak a different language or are raised in different cultures from the humans with whom we are communicating, errors and misinterpretations increase. Trying to communicate with or interpret the communication of another species only adds more layers of complexity.
How good are we at understanding dogs and cats?
tl;dr: Not great
Some research has been done to determine how well humans interpret canine and feline body language. What’s usually found is that we’re not good at recognizing fear or stress in dogs and cats, and we also underestimate fear when we do recognize it. We tend to make judgments about animals based on their appearance alone, and as children we’re prone to focusing on dogs faces and can therefore miss important and obvious signals from dogs and cats that communicate “stop” or “leave me alone.” Through trial and error we may learn some important lessons (e.g. baring teeth is not a smile, it precedes a bite) but we may only learn that after getting bitten and terrifying our own dog or cat.
Effective communication is essential for social relationships
Learning how our dogs and cats (or horses, birds, rabbits, etc) communicate gives us a window into their emotions, deepens our relationships with them, and helps us to navigate the world and our interactions with them more safely and compassionately. Even if you lived with dogs and cats all your life, your skills can always improve. One study even showed that non-dog owners were better at interpreting canine emotions than dog owners. The authors suggested that there may be a detrimental effect to having experience with dogs without theoretical knowledge of dog behavior.
Maybe it’s a lack of theoretical knowledge, but I also think it’s part of human nature and relationships. The dog and cat owners I work with in my veterinary behavior practice are always trying to get into their pets’ heads and make sense of their pet’s behavior—the why of what’s happening. This is totally normal. Humans are story tellers with brains designed to try to make sense of a confusing and ever changing world. It’s normal to attempt to connect the dots and come up with reasons for what’s happening, especially if it’s causing a problem within an important relationship. When we ask clients to describe their pet’s behavior, we’re often met with their interpretations of the reasons for the behavior rather than descriptions. “He was mad at me” or “he’s jealous of the new baby.” Are those things true? Possibly, but usually not. The problem with these subjective interpretations is if you don’t know the body language of your animal well, you’re likely to be far off the mark in your conclusions. And those false conclusions may lead you to address the issue in distinctly unhelpful ways. So rather trying to interpret the why of you pet’s behavior, focus on what they are doing and learn the range of signals that your pet uses to communicate. If you can get really clear about what they are doing, that can eventually lead you to the why.
How dogs and cats communicate
Dogs and cats communicate with each other and with us in three main ways: through visual signals, sounds, and scents. For the sake of this post I’ll focus primarily on visual communication (body language) and will dive into the others in a future post.
Body language includes the range of facial expressions, body postures, and ear and tail positions that dogs and cats use to communicate emotional states and intent. Animals combine body language signals and mix them with sounds +/- scents to facilitate communication—combing signals increases the chance that the message will get across (and humans are better at interpreting combined signals). Additionally, animals can vary the intensity of the signal by modifying postures and vocalizations. Some signals are subtle, while others are big and obvious. The greater the animal’s motivation to get the message across, the more intense the signal.
Compare this image, which we might classify as a subtle:
To this one:
In each case, the dog is giving what we call “distance-increasing” signals. The latter is just more motivated to get their point across.
Here’s what that can look like in cats. Somewhat subtle:
Not so subtle:
Same basic message “give me space,” different intensity. It’s extremely important to learn the subtle signals your pet uses to communicate. When they’re using subtle communication signals they’re still capable of learning a new response or a positive association with the situation. By the time they’re using the big obvious signals, they are experiencing intensely negative emotions. The main lesson they’re learning from the situation is that it was very unpleasant and they’ll need to increase their efforts to make it stop the next time around. This is one reason why behaviors rooted in fear and anxiety, like aggression, tend to get worse over time.
Sometimes signals can be ambiguous and confusing. Think of a dog growling at you while wagging their tail.1 Or a cat rubbing on your legs while hissing. Even though these seem like mixed messages, what they are telling us is the animal is experiencing a high level of emotional arousal and is likely experiencing conflicting motivations of fight vs. flight. It’s best to use caution, remain calm, and give the animal space when you encounter ambiguous signals.
Learn the body language of fear and anxiety
Fear and anxiety are natural emotions that your pet is bound to experience, and these emotions drive many of the behaviors that we humans find so troubling. Even if you don’t consider your pet to be “fearful,” it’s important to be aware of and look for these signs. We’ve already established that humans aren’t great at identifying fear and anxiety in companion animals. These are skills you can develop with practice though, and it’ll be an ongoing learning journey that’ll enrich your understanding of your pets and all the animals you encounter.
To start, watch these free videos from Fear Free that cover the basics. This one is on dogs, and this one is on cats.
Once you watch those, make a study of your own pet. Start with focusing on one body part at a time (eyes, mouth, ears, tail, etc) then zoom out and look at their whole body and what other signals and postures are present.
Next, if you have concerns about a specific issue, or are simply puzzled by a certain pet behavior, write down what you are seeing. Pretend you are trying to describe a video of the behavior to someone who can’t see the screen, and narrate what you see. Describe their behavior objectively, and leave the interpretations out of it. Here are some examples:
My description of this dog: Head lowered, ears back, wide eyes (whites visible), tense lips, body crouched, tense body, tail parallel with spine (possibly wagging).
My description of this cat: Ears turned outward, pupils dilated, tense body, body partially crouched, tail low and close to body.
Why objective descriptions are important
Notice I didn’t add any interpretations in the descriptions above. If I were to describe these animals to someone not looking at the pictures, they’d be able to picture them clearly and we’d therefore be working with the same information. That wouldn’t be the case if I used a term like “worried” or “frightened” or “upset.” These are subjective terms and are therefore interpreted differently by different individuals. Maybe that’s not a huge deal in day-to-day conversations, but it’s a really big deal if you’re collaborating with others to address behavioral concerns. You need to be on the same page about what’s going on and therefore objective descriptions are what’s needed.
Practice!
Go back to some of the previous pictures in this post and practice your description skills on them. Then double check your work—is what you wrote an objective description or did you add any flavorings of interpretation?
Keep practicing throughout the week, and focus on looking for subtle signals (the fret and fidget in the videos). If you see them, note down what’s going on at the time. Was there a noise? Did someone just approach them? Ring the bell? Did another animal enter the room? These will all be pieces of the puzzle that will allow you to see your pet’s behavior more clearly, and help you set aside any preconceived notions or judgments about them.
Next week I’ll take you on a deeper dive into dog communication, the range of meanings behind their signals, and how to use this information to more effectively navigate challenging situations.
Thanks so much for reading! For some additional practice and an opportunity for feedback, add your own pictures of your pet doing something along with your description in the comments. I look forward to seeing them!
Insightful Animals is operated by me, Kelly C. Ballantyne, DVM, DACVB. I’m a vet behaviorist, nature fanatic, bird artist, wife, and mom to two hilarious Ragdoll cats, Pipit and Towhee. In my day-to-day, I consult directly with pet parents and veterinarians on a range of behavior problems in dogs and cats.
We’ll dive into the many meanings of dogs’ tails in a future post. In the meantime, know a wagging tail doesn’t always mean a happy dog.
Great article. I tend to jump right to trying to interrupt what the behaviors mean, which often feels rushed and confusing. Slowing down and describing the body language makes sense!
Learning to focus on body language instead of applying broad labels has been life changing and so beneficial!
A question about conflicting body language: my dog has a tendency to tuck his tail when doing food puzzles. His body language is often loose, ears neutral, and he’ll finish the puzzle how it’s intended to (opening compartments, flipping a toy etc.) does his tucked tail mean he hates puzzles?