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Does my droopy body language mean I’m a pessimist?
You know the phrase “are you a glass half empty or a glass half full person?” It’s used to determine whether or not you generally have a positive or negative outlook on life. Well, now one researcher at a pet behavior center in Scotland believes that we can apply the same concept to dogs.
Companion animal behaviorist Viv Silverstein from the Pet Behaviour Centre in Cambuslang, Scotland, tells the U.K.’s Daily Record that paying attention to your dog’s body language can actually reveal whether or not it’s a pessimist or an optimist.
Silverstein admits that canine body language is often subtle, and that it takes observing a variety of clues to piece together something as complicated as your dog’s overall outlook on life. Additionally, the signs get tricky to read because dogs might shift their mood in an instant and do so several times in a short period, a holdover from survival in the wild.
Some moods, however, aren’t too complicated to read. Silverstein outlines a few:
“A play bow is when a dog touches its elbows on the floor and leaves its bottom up as though it’s having a stretch. That’s an open invitation to play, so your dog is being friendly. If a dog isn’t happy it could have its ears down, its lips brought back and its tail down low. That’s a sign a dog is worried. If a dog has its tail tucked under itself, it could have a hunched back, ears down, squinty eyes and a low head carriage. A dog like this is afraid, unsure and doesn’t know what to do. And a dog that stands stiff-legged, tall with its head up, ears forward, eyes alert and with a curled lip is being aggressive.”
At first I was uncertain about Silverstein’s assertions. They made sense, but they were all coming from one person. However, the Daily Record also reports that scientists from Bristol University conducted studies at pet adoption centers that coincide with Silverstein’s thesis. Their study concludes that dogs represent a rather even split: around fifty percent of pet canines are optimists, while the other half consists of pessimists.
Perhaps what’s throwing me off more than the details of these studies is the language being used. Pessimism and optimism seem too metaphysical for dogs; I definitely agree that dogs have emotions, but I’m not sure that we can assign them overall worldviews. Also, the changeability of their supposed worldviews indicates that we’re really talking more about emotions than philosophical outlooks.
The details of Silverstein’s research further convince me that we’re just talking about emotions here. She gives the example of a border collie: it’s bred to problem solve and run around all day. If it doesn’t get that in its daily life, then it might negatively react by destroying things around the house. Silverstein, however, calls it pessimism. I call it a mix of depression and boredom. The dog isn’t thinking about how it feels about life, it’s just reacting to not having the level of stimulus it needs.
I definitely think there’s something to be said about dogs having emotions, and how we can read their body language to interpret whether our dog is feeling fulfilled, or happy, or not. If you’re interested in learning more about how to read your dog’s body language and thus emotions, check out books like this one here on Amazon.com.
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