Dogs

Shaking sits at the intersection of normal emotion and real emergency. A wet dog shivers on a cold porch. A poisoned dog tremors on the kitchen floor. The movement can look similar for the first few seconds. Start with four...

A dog across the room holds your eyes. The mind rushes to one of two stories: devotion or challenge. Both are too simple. Dogs use gaze flexibly, and the safest clue is not eye contact alone. It is what the...

Following is easy to romanticize and easy to pathologize. A dog can trail you because you are his secure base, because you open doors, or because the kitchen is in that direction. The behavior becomes a problem when the dog...

The familiar theory says dogs tilt their heads to hear better, see around their muzzles, look cute, or show empathy. Most versions outrun the evidence. There is one unusually useful study. It did not settle the question, but it changed...

The easy translation is "kisses." Sometimes a lick does sit inside a warm greeting. Sometimes the same tongue flick appears when a dog wants a face farther away. Treat licking as an action. Ask what the body and the situation...

A howl can sound mournful even when the dog is joining a siren from the sofa. Human ears hear emotion in the note. The dog's setting tells us far more. Start with the clock and the trigger. A ten second...

Grass eating is one of the most common things dogs do, and one of the least understood. The internet will tell you your dog is sick, or purging, or short on fiber. The research is far less certain than any...

A sleeping dog paddles one paw, lets out a muffled bark, and stops. It is tempting to fill in the movie: a squirrel, the beach, dinner. Science gets us part of the way. Dogs have measurable sleep stages, including REM....

One second your dog is standing still. The next he is tucked low, eyes bright, and cutting laps around the sofa as if the hallway has a finish line. The technical sounding label often used is frenetic random activity periods,...

A curled dog is not automatically anxious. A dog on his back is not proving complete trust. Those readings are tidy enough for a social post and too tidy for a living animal. Sleeping positions shift with room temperature, bed...

Almost every question a dog parent types into Google at 11pm is a behavior question. Why does she sleep on me and not him. Why does he groan like an old man when he lies down. Why does she follow...