- Researchers at the University of Salford got 37 owners to film their dogs
- They analysed the footage and pinpointed what the pooches were saying
- Jumping, licking and lifting a paw are ways dogs indicate they want food
- Rolling over, nosing leg and turning head were among gestures identified
Scientists have found ‘strong evidence’ that dogs use gestures to communicate with people in one of the first systematic attempts to decode their language.
Researchers at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester began a mission to uncover what pooches are trying to say with subtle signals and more overt gestures.
They signed up 37 dogs and their owners who then filmed their four-legged friends’ every-day movements. The footage was analysed to see what they were trying to say.
Researchers at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester found that lifting a paw and jumping up and down were some of the ways dogs show their owner they are hungry
Scratch me please! The researchers found that when dogs roll over they could be asking for their owner to tickle their tummy
Rolling over, lifting paws and jumping up and down were among the 19 gestures analysed in the study.
Asking to be scratched, for a door to be opened, a toy to be fetched and for meals to be served were some of the requests the scientists believe they were making.
Unsurprisingly, dogs have many ways of indicating they want food – including jumping, turning their head, lifting their paw, rubbing their nose and licking.
Flicking a toy around in front of people was also identified as dog speak for ‘I’m hungry’ in the study, which was published in the journal Animal Cognition.
Sometimes dogs use a variety of signals in order to get their message across if it is not understood the first time, the study showed.
And different dogs were found to use different signals for the same request.
For example, a dog might roll on their back or nose their owner’s leg when asking for their tummy to be scratched.
The most common gesture identified by the scientists was the ‘head turn’.
This is when the dog looks from a human to an object to show that they are interested in it.
It appears that most of the time the object of interest is their food bowl.
The researchers concluded this ‘head turn’ gesture indicated that dogs were ‘potentially adept at using referential communication’.
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