Yes asks: Do dogs really smell fear? In a mysterious way, quiet and well-trained dogs manage to attack the most fearful guests with threatening barks and growls. How do they know who to take asses and who to wag their tails?
In a mysterious way, quiet and well-trained dogs manage to attack the most fearful guests with threatening barks and growls. How do they know who to take asses and who to wag their tails? The myth is that dogs smell some substance emitted by cowards. The hypothesis sounds logical since there are people whose dogs tend to react aggressively to their proximity and they use their sense of smell to navigate their surroundings, but fear has no smell: there is no chemical difference between the sweat of a coward and the sweat of a brave man. A more fundamental bewilderment is why would fear trigger such an aggressive response in the dog?
The psychology of our best friend is studied very thoroughly. Dogs were the first animal to be domesticated and are still the animal most physically and emotionally close to us. This proximity has far-reaching consequences for the way he perceives the world.
A domesticated wolf
The house dog is a domesticated wolf, very little has changed in his biology and even in his psychology since he moved from the spaces to the pillow in the living room. But this little includes elements that are important for communication with us. During the 15 thousand years of friendship we got to know each other and developed a common language. Barking, for example, is a unique means of communication for the domesticated dog (with the wolf, barking is a means of communication limited to puppies) and humans understand very well what dogs are saying in the different barking styles.
On the dog's part, a tendency that does not exist in wolves (not even those raised from infancy by humans) has developed to look at people's faces. Facial expressions are an essential element of human communication. Accordingly, a special area in the brain is exclusively dedicated to the task of recognizing faces and a significant part of the information we receive from the world and transmit to it is through the abundance of facial expressions. In ambulators, the task of communication is divided among many body parts: the tail, the curvature of the back, the fur, and more. Humans use their hands to handle tools, the lower limbs have to take care of posture and movement on their own and many more communication tasks are burdened on the facial muscles which have indeed adapted to the task and allow us a multitude of expressions: from smiling to expressing anger, curiosity or empathy. To chat with his friends, a wolf will look at a set of details scattered all over his body and has no reason to reduce his field of vision to the head area. Focusing the gaze on a person's face is perhaps the most significant task for which we genetically trained the dog. An experiment that demonstrated this showed that dogs can easily figure out where their owners have placed food if the person looks at the correct bowl. To convey the information to a domesticated wolf, it is necessary to send the whole hand towards the bowl or actually touch it. How did the dog learn this strange task? Presumably the dog breeders preferred to keep as pets (or, actually, as cave animals) dogs they liked. As thousands of circus animals know what an animal likes about humans is the imitation of human behavior. Heavy evolutionary pressure was exerted on the unfortunate wolf cubs who were brought from the field to the tribal campfire to resemble the strange creatures around them. The one who succeeded in this was the one who focused his gaze on people's faces and followed the direction of their gaze.
Don't understand a dog
Unlike dogs who have learned to observe and interpret our body language, humans have not developed good intuitions for understanding canine body language. Except for a superficial understanding of expressions of fear or an invitation to play, most of us, including dog breeders, do not know how to read a tail wag or a nose licking movement. Most dog owners will correctly interpret a lowered tail as an expression of fear and distress, but few know the difference between a wide tail wagging movement of a happy dog and quick and short tail movements that suggest stress and even aggression
And here, in a sharp jump, we will pass from evolution to the postman or the pizza delivery man who opens the yard gate and stands in front of the dog. Those for whom a dog is a threat are flooded with adrenaline and the adrenaline does its job: it makes him focus his gaze on the danger, that is, on the dog. The dog, for his part, does what dogs have learned to do: looks towards the postman's face. The dog knows that there is meaning in the direction a person's gaze is directed and the man in front of him is looking in his direction. In addition, the dog learned to recognize the rhythm and style of normal walking. And someone who is afraid moves at a different pace and his movement is fragmented, he doesn't seem like someone who came to provide food or play, so his intentions are obviously aggressive. The dog will not attack immediately but will show a sequence of warning gestures: from a collected tail, a frozen body position, moving the ears back, exposing teeth and growling, the continuation of the movement perceived as threatening may lead to a bite researcher Judit Vas examined the reaction of dogs of different breeds to an approaching stranger to them A method of approach that was perceived by the dogs as threatening and led to an aggressive reaction included staring directly at the dog, walking hesitantly with a bent back and without making a sound: this is not how a dog lover would usually behave. The same researcher (with the same body odor) received a friendly response from the same dogs when he approached with a leisurely walk and without staring at them.
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One response
Nice, only those who write about dogs deserve to know
Because "……. Dogs of different species ……'. Yuk!
Because all dogs belong to the same species
And he is "Canis lupus familiaris".
This species has many different subspecies (races),
It is also appropriate for the writer to learn to write information
Instead of the unnecessary "information"...