Get your own Free Home Page"From birth, puppies learn behaviors bring results. Wolf pups get a meal by licking the face of their mother or other dominant adult in the pack until the licking stimulates the adult to regurgitate partially digested food for them. Dog pups don't expect this reaction but they will lick their mother's face to get attention. When dogs lick their owners' faces, it is a signal that the dog regards himself as subordinate. The dog that does the least licking in the pack is the Alpha dog.
Dogs also communicate their social standing through body language. The signals range from the subtleness of indirect looks, walking within a specific distance of another animal, or soft growls, to the blatantly elevated tail and ears, and direct stare of a dominant member of a pack as he greets a newcomer. The Alpha will do most of the sniffing for identification; the subordinate one stands still and allows the Alpha to investigate.
Communication in the world of the canine is not always positive. In the whelping nest, if a puppy is too persistent in trying to get Mom to play, Mom will issue a warning growl. If baby continues to pester her, she will close her jaws around baby's skull and will shake puppy hard enough to immediately convince it that it made a mistake in not heeding mom's warning. The pup learns that Mom means business -- no idle threats here! The neat thing is that Mom doesn't hold a grudge.
Obvious signals of dominance in dogs are standing tall and stiff, maintaining erect ears, and establishing direct eye contact. A dominant dog may bump into and expect a subordinate to defer and move away. The dominant animal may place his forepaws on the shoulder of a subordinate, mouth the neck or muzzle of the underdog, or stand over the subordinate dog as he lies on the ground. The submissive dog tolerates the gestures and defers to the dominant dog.
In contrast, a submissive individual usually will lower its head, neck, and tail; flatten back its ears, and possibly attempt to touch the corners of the mouth of the dominant individual with its nose. It may also discharge a small amount of urine or roll onto its back, exposing its stomach and neck.
Should the submissive dog resist the gestures of the dominant dog, or demonstrate dominant behavior, the dominant animal would probably become aggressive. Growling is the lowest level of aggression, which, if ignored, could be followed by a snap, nip, or bite. The dominant dog would continue to escalate his aggressiveness until the subordinate dog backs off.
Because of these innate instincts, our companion dogs are extremely sensitive to body language. They can read very subtle nuance in our posture and gestures. From these posture and gestures, the dog determines its place in the pack.
On to The Role of the Puppy In The Human Family
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