![]() ![]() The piloerection reflex occurs in several contexts related to the individual’s increase in arousal, indicating, for example, fear or surprise, or to communicate aggression or stress. The individual’s body size can be further increased by piloerection of the hackles ( Figure 1). Dogs can communicate confidence, alertness, or threat by increasing their body size, pulling themselves up to their full height, and increasing the tension of the body muscles. In dogs’ encounters with other conspecifics, body size and body posture are the first visual signals perceived, providing the very first information about other individuals’ intentions. The female is looking at something else with a body language that gives information she is much more self-confident.īroadly speaking, individuals’ proximity and direct interactions are required during visual communication. The Czech wolf needs to be close to his “adoptive mother” while he is looking at something that catches his attention. The two dogs have a very strong relationship. Therefore, visual communication could be extremely challenging for some dogs, both for correctly delivering and for interpreting visual information. The long or dense fur of some breeds obscures several visual signals, like piloerection, or even entire parts of dogs’ body (eyes, mouth, or legs). For instance, brachycephalic dog lost the flexibility in displaying different facial expressions and dogs with permanently erected ears or with a very short tails lost part of their behavioural repertoire expressed by these anatomical structures. However, humans, through artificial selection over many years, have produced changes in dogs’ anatomy and morphology that have reduced the social signaling capacity of several breeds. Control by voluntary muscles allows dogs to display a wide range of postures and body part positions that convey different information about the signaler’s inner state and intentions. The aim of this review is to provide an overview on the recent literature about dog communication, describing the different nature of the signals used in conspecific and heterospecific interactions and their communicative meaning.ĭogs communicate visually with other individual modifying the position of different parts of their body (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). ĭogs are engaged in visual communication by modifying different parts of their body, in tactile communication, and in auditory and olfactory communication, with vocalizations and body odours, respectively. Despite being involuntary, this signal is received as a communicative signal by other individual because it informs them about the sender’s inner state and it can produce changes in the receiver’s behaviour. When a dog experiences an emotional state, for example anxiety, it releases a specific body odour into the environment. Not all the signals, in fact, are under voluntary control. They use their whole body to communicate, conveying information intentionally or otherwise. ![]() ĭogs show a flexible behavioural repertoire when communicating with humans, employing the same signals used in intraspecific interactions (dog–dog), some of which can acquire and carry a different meaning when used toward humans (e.g., eye contact, ). Specifically, the co-habitation process and the human–dog attachment caused both in human and in dogs changes in their cross-species communicative abilities, the result of which is to perceive and understand the other species’ signals and correctly respond to them. There is now evidence suggesting that the dog–human relationship can be characterized as an “attachment”, which closely resembles the one reported between infants and their primary caregivers. Living in close contact with humans for at least 30,000 years, dogs have developed specific skills enabling them to communicate flexibly with humans. Communication occurs between members of the same species, as well as between heterospecific individuals, as occurs between domestic dogs and humans.
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