A high swishing tail means a happy dog, right? But is it really that simple or is your dog’s tail wag more complicated than that? How does dogs use their tail in communication both with other dogs and with us humans and what emotions lie behind tail wags?
A dog’s tail is one of the features we humans rely most on when reading our dog’s body language. The tail is very visible and it is commonly known that when a dog’s tail is down they are not feeling good and when the dog’s tail is high, they are happy or excited. However, there is a lot more to a tail wag then first anticipated. Science has now found that a dog’s tail can tell you a lot more about how our dog’s are feeling, in fact it can tell us about their most inner emotions. It all depends on direction – whether or not the tail wagging is going left or right.
If you have been around different dogs, either through your work or living with dogs, you have probably seen your dog using his/her tail in different ways to communicate with you. The happy high swishing tail or complete tail wheel you see when you come home after a long workday, to the more insecure frightened tail between the legs telling you that your dog is feeling insecure or frightened about something. The high tail tells you that a dog is confident, while a low tail tells you that a dog is insecure or scared.
The Science Behind Tail Wagging
It all comes down to lateralization. A dog’s brain, like a human’s, is divided into a left and a right hemisphere. The left hemisphere of the brain has control of the more positive emotions while the right hemisphere takes charge of the more negative emotions. Just like in humans, the nerves cross on the way from the muscles to the brain, so that the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body.
Scientist found that the symmetry in which a dog wags his/her tail differs slightly when comparing the right and left side.
This was studied further, and a study have now shown that when dogs greet their owners their tail is more turned to the right, hence the left hemisphere is splurging out happy positive emotions. This was in contrast to when the dogs were introduced to a stranger, where it was observed that their tail went more towards the left hence an activation of the right hemisphere in control of the more negative emotions.
The direction of a dog’s tail can change instantly if the situation changes, which was seen when the dogs saw their owners from a distance and first wagged a little insecure to the left but once they recognized their owner their wag quickly changed to the right (Read more about the dog-human relation here).
But it is not only for humans that dogs differ their tail wag symmetry. They also use it to communicate with other dogs. This was found in a study where dogs were shown video clips of other dogs wagging either more to the left or more to the right. In the dogs observing, a higher pulse and increased insecure behaviour was observed when they watched dogs wagging more towards the left.
These studies show us the importance of learning to read our dogs body language and how the slightest changes in their body language can tell you how they feel (Learn more about your dog’s body language here). Furthermore, it also proves that just because a dog shows a high wagging tail it does not mean that (s)he is happy, it can also be a sign of insecurity, negative or positive arousal or fear. With this knowledge you can help your dog by understanding how (s)he feels in different situations and protect them from uncomfortable potentially scary situations in the future.
Want to know more about dog body language then check out our Dog Body Language Library
Sources:
Quaranta, A. et al. 2007. Asymmetric tail-wagging responses by dogs to different emotive stimuli. Current Biology 17, R199-R201
Siniscali, M. et al. 2013. Seeing left- or right-asymmetric tail wagging produces different emotional responses in dogs. Current Biology 23, 2279-2282
