Can Dogs Laugh? I am Just Curious About Dog Laughing...

Can Dogs Laugh?

Dog laughing is no more just a nifty curiosity of the dog lovers... rather more expanded form of researches have been carried out all through the world to establish whether dogs can really laugh. Modern studies suggest that dogs' laughter, alike human, is a very strong form of their communication with their pack members -- other dogs/animals and with their beloved owners.

Stanley Coren, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia has been making constant researches on dogs and their psychology. According to professor Coren, "Animals make laugh-like sounds when they are tickled or playing... ". Modern canine behavioral studies defy the already established idea of psychologists and behavioral biologists that "laughter was a unique emotional expression found only in humans". The Nobel Laurette, ethnologist, Konrad Lorenz has chosen to differ from the already established idea of canine psychologists and behavioral biologists, and re-established that dogs can laugh. He says that it is during play that dogs actually appear to laugh.

"Man Meets Dog" is a famous book authored by Mr. Lorenz, who described this specific emotion in dogs in this way:"...an invitation to play always follows; here the slightly opened jaws which reveal the tongue, and the tilted angle of the mouth which stretches almost from ear to ear give a still stronger impression of laughing. This ‘laughing' is most often seen in dogs playing with an adored master and which become so excited that they soon start panting". It is this "panting", which according to Lorenz is similar to human laughter.

Patricia Simonet, who is the Cognitive Ethologist and Animal Behaviorist said that she found a way to cool down the raucous barkers at her animal shelter. Simonet said she use to play a recording of dogs “laughing” – a prominent breathy exhalation through the mouth - which is generated when the dog pants in excitement. Simonet compares the sound with the "pig snorting". She found its similarity with the human “hah hah hah” without the “a.” This is dog laughing, according to the research scientist Patricia Simonet. While describing the laughter sound in dogs she said, "To an untrained human ear, it sounds much like a pant, 'hhuh, hhuh."

So what is the difference between a dog laughing and general panting?
To describe this difference between a dog panting and the laughter of a dog,Simonet describes what she had studied while analyzing the sound of playing dogs being recorded in parks with a parabolic microphone. What she defines as a laugh of dog is the exhalation sound that bursted into a broader range of frequencies than the sound made by a dog while panting in general. She also noticed that when she imitated the laugh panting sounds of dogs it appeared to cast a positive and enliven effect on the dogs that hear it. A shinning facial expression is exhibited by the dogs hearing it.

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Identify Your Dog's Emotions - Dogs Have Emotions and Feelings

Identifying Dog Emotions

The dog pictures in this post will give you an idea of dog emotions

I don’t have too many friends. Most of the very few friends of mine are dog owners, yet some people are there who do not have dogs, but they love dogs. Most of my pals who don’t have dogs seem to be really confused when I say my dogs have emotions. Yes, this is something that has created a real buzz across the web. Do dogs have emotions? I am sure you will agree with me if I say dogs have emotions and if you are a dog owner. Still I have come across peeps who own dogs don’t know how to recognize a dog’s emotion. I do recognize my dogs’ emotions and moods through their gestures, body languages, expression of their eyes, and not to forget, the sound they make. Well, I am not a professional canine behaviorist or scientist. I just love dogs, can’t live without them try to learn from them as much as I can. I can understand when they are excited, when they are sad and when anxious. It’s not a rocket science! Just what we cannot do is we cannot measure emotions of a dog. There has been a hard topic of debate amongst the canine behaviorists because it's not possible to quantify the emotion of a dog. Researchers cannot say exactly how happy or sad a dog is. Only I can say that Roland is very happy because his mum, Mrs. Gordon, got back home, or he is very sad since his bother – Gordon’s son, has caught cold and cannot play with him.

So how do I recognize my dogs emotions?

Emotion is what delivers your dog an impulse to act according to situations. While the negative emotion or the emotion of fear will deliver a dog an impulse to defend himself, a happy dog will come close to you, wagging and appreciate a physical contact. Touch definitely strengthens the man-dog relationship. There’s no doubt about the fact that your dog has rich emotional aspect of his life. He feels happy when he should and becomes sad during the gloomy moments of his life. That is the main reason why your dog show symptoms of pleasure like jumping and springing, wagging and licking your face, holding his ears back and making sounds of love and happiness etc. when you get back from your work place at the end of the day. No dog owner on the planet can understand exactly how much happy his dog actually is, and hence most owners choose to ignore the emotional part of their dog’s life! A very few people who have lived with dogs would deny the fact that dogs have emotional feelings. Every time Reva (my female GSD) meets with her daughter (Rechie), they greet each other with love, wagging their tails, licking each other and biting each others’ muzzles. They seem so happy, chasing one another. The facial expressions of both the dogs are different from the expressions they both show when they come across the strangers. I am sure you might also have noticed this!

Until a recent research the canine experts and behaviorists used to believe that dogs have only the primary emotions or basic emotions like love, joy, sadness, fear and anger. Primary emotions are those emotions that form the basic platform for all other secondary emotions (which are more complicated emotions) like anxiety, jealousy and shyness. Recently researchers have come up with the conclusions that dogs have both emotions, and this is what all responsible dog lovers, who have noticed dogs, have always known! It is now proved that dogs have al emotions that we human have. Now I am sure training your dog yourself is going to be a bit easier. All you need to do is to trigger his emotional aspect. Dogs have inherent instincts to learn things just like human babies. They know how to love and be loved. Sadness, fear and anger put extra mental stress on them, which makes them hard to learn new tricks. Hence Yelling at them will never work. Scaring and hitting them will make your dog more obstinate – just like human babies, and will make training harder.

A happy dog will be anxious to see what trick is going to be made by his master. If you carefully notice his ears, eyes, head movement, tail position and movement, the way he’s carrying his head, the posture he is carrying himself with etc. you will get and idea of his emotional state. Not just one thing can give you a correct view, for example, tail wagging doesn’t always mean that he is in playing mood. A bed ridden dog will wag his tail seeing his owner; that doesn’t mean that he wants to go out to play, but it’s an indication that he is happy to see his loved one and wants his owner to stay by him during his bad time. Tail wagging indicates excitement, anticipation, playfulness, contentment/enjoyment, happy, self-confidence etc. Along side the tail wagging, I notice the tail position, facial expression, ear position and obviously the vocal communication to conclude exactly about my dogs’ emotional state.

Bottom line is that I try to understand the communication of my dogs to identify his requirements.

Interesting Links:

HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH DOGS

UNDERSTANDING DOG ATTACKS

WHY DO DOGS BECOME AGGRESSIVE

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