“How come he likes you? He never likes anyone! You must be magic.”
We get this all the time. People are always amazed when normally fearful or aggressive animals like us. It’s a handy skill, considering that we work with animals with behavior problems for a living. And because we like you, we’re going to share the secret. Ready?
It’s magic.
Kidding!
It’s really just a combination of respect and knowledge, and you can learn it too.
The problem with human greetings
When we humans want to be friendly – to express our lack of threat – we make direct eye contact, smile, extend our hand, and move toward the recipient of our affections. In the animal kingdom, this never happens! Almost no social animal of any species uses eye contact, display of teeth, and invasion of space as a friendly greeting. If we take domestic dogs as an example, if a dog stares directly at another dog and walks toward him, it means one of two things: 1) an invitation to play, which will be designated by other social signals such as a play bow or wiggling, or 2) a threat, or a challenge. Next time you see dogs who don’t know each other well hanging out together, watch them. How often to they actually look into each other’s eyes? The longer you watch, the more you’ll realize that it almost never happens.
What this means is that the very things we humans do to indicate our good intentions are the very things that dogs find threatening. What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Dogs use certain body language to put others at ease.
Now, when a dog wants to put another dog at ease, there is a pretty fixed set of behaviors that they will offer. Among the most common are:
- looking away
- turning their head
- walking away
- sitting or lying down
- sniffing the ground
- urinating on something
- blinking slowly
- yawning
These signals are commonly called “calming signals” and are better explored in Turid Rugaas’ excellent book, Calming Signals: On Talking Terms with Dogs.
In other words, when a dog wants to put another dog at ease, they basically do the exact opposite of us: they make a big show of ignoring the other dog!
The best way to “make friends” with a scared or aggressive dog…
…is to “speak” the language they understand.
- Remember that dogs have personal space needs, just like people. Keep your distance.
- Move slowly, smoothly and predictably. For example, if you need to get up from sitting, lean forward first, brace yourself, THEN stand, so the dog can anticipate what is about to happen before it does. No surprises.
- Remember to relax your muscles and breathe. You can even yawn or assume some bad posture (lean against a wall, slouch) to appear even more relaxed.
- Don’t talk to, touch, or look at the dog. In fact, make a big show of doing whatever it is that you’re doing, as long as it relatively stationary, like reading, writing, or watching TV. (You can sniff the ground if you want, but that might make any humans present uncomfortable, which leaves you with a whole new problem.)
- And lastly, remember that dogs are experts at asking for what they want. If a dog wants to be petted, you’ll know it, because they’ll ask! If they haven’t asked, assume they don’t want to be petted at the moment. Above all (and this is for the men out there especially), don’t allow your ego to be tied up in whether the dog “likes” you or not. Don’t be pushy.
It’s a strange phenomenon that when someone pets a human against their will, it’s considered a violation. When someone pets an animal against his or her will, the animal is expected to put up with it quietly, and if he doesn’t, it’s considered a “behavior problem.” Just food for thought.
Do you have a shy or reactive dog who finds meeting new people difficult? We can help with that. Contact us for some private training!
