You hear your doggy do this every day but what does it mean? Now you won't have to wonder! We get that sometimes it's hard to decipher what Fido is telling you, but you with time you can learn your pup's language. You'll get all the answers here. Understand your pooch a little better!
Many pet owners can distinguish meaning from their dog’s various barks.
To the research world, however, it’s been suggested that dog barking, which can sometimes continue at length even in the seeming absence of a reply, is mostly just noise.
Dogs Produce Different Bark Subtypes
The late Dr. Sophia Yin, an applied animal behaviorist, explored the hypothesis that dogs bark differently in different contexts, essentially producing a variety of bark subtypes that may act as specific forms of communication.Dogs Can Be Identified by Their Barks
Another intriguing aspect of the study related to identifying individual dogs according to their bark. It turned out that this is indeed possible, but if you’re the owner of multiple dogs, you probably knew this already.Not only can you likely determine which of your dogs is barking at any given time (without actually seeing them), if you pay attention you should also be able to identify which one of your neighbors’ dogs is barking solely by the sound.
Are Your Dog’s Barks a Form of Communication?
Again, most dog owners would quickly say, “yes,” but in terms of science “for a vocalization to be communication, the animal who hears the signal must respond in a specific way,” Yin wrote.In order for vocalizations to be communication, it’s also said that the vocalizer should change its “tune” in response to its listeners reactions.
A Universal Animal Language
Some researchers have also suggested that a universal animal language unites all mammals, even humans, to some extent. In a study published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, for instance, researchers found both adults and children could easily identify fearful/lonely, angry and playful dog barks.The end result may be that dogs are able to easily communicate different emotions to us via their barks (and they, in turn, are able to pick up on our emotions as well).
How interesting! Who knew that doggies were really saying so much through their barking? What's even more amazing is the fact that we're pretty fined tuned to differentiate our doggy's barks from a crowd!
For more information on doggy communication, visit Healthy Pets.
