03-30-2007, 03:07 PM
You know about the sage who once said , know thyself ??? I wonder if the pack members and the alpha lead who is so fond of chasing his own tail knows themselves !! since I am the leader of the pack .. I took it upon myself to peep into the dogs mind .. I mean I am doggoned if I don’t … and viola .. now I feel more dog-learned member of the forum !!!
I mean how many of you knew before that dogs wag their tails to the left or right depending on how they're feeling?.
The Italian researchers say, tails wag to the right when dogs are happy and see something they want to approach and to the left when they are frightened and confronted with something they want to run away from.
Professor Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trieste and team describe these "striking asymmetries in the control of tail movements" as another example of how the right and left halves of the brain control different emotions.
They publish their findings in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology.
They tested 30 pet dogs, 15 males and 15 females with an age range of one to six years.
They placed the dogs in a large rectangular wooden box covered with black plastic to prevent them from seeing out and filmed each dog's response to four different visual stimuli: the dog's owner, an unknown person, a dominant, unfamiliar dog and a cat.
"When faced with their owner, dogs exhibited a striking right-sided bias in the amplitudes of tail wagging," the researchers write.
Tails kept wagging to the right when dogs were shown an unfamiliar person and the cat.
The human stranger elicited less wagging than the owner, and the cat - a four-year-old European male placed in a small metal cage - the least wagging of all.
But when shown a large, unfamiliar and intimidating four-year-old male Belgian shepherd malinois, also kept in a cage, the tails leaned consistently leftwards.
Dogs also wagged their tails to the left when they were on their own, means that they like company.
However, it is unlikely that people can benefit from this discovery when approaching a dog as the dogs tend to move about constantly, making the right-left bias often so subtle it can only be spotted with video analysis.
I mean how many of you knew before that dogs wag their tails to the left or right depending on how they're feeling?.
The Italian researchers say, tails wag to the right when dogs are happy and see something they want to approach and to the left when they are frightened and confronted with something they want to run away from.
Professor Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trieste and team describe these "striking asymmetries in the control of tail movements" as another example of how the right and left halves of the brain control different emotions.
They publish their findings in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology.
They tested 30 pet dogs, 15 males and 15 females with an age range of one to six years.
They placed the dogs in a large rectangular wooden box covered with black plastic to prevent them from seeing out and filmed each dog's response to four different visual stimuli: the dog's owner, an unknown person, a dominant, unfamiliar dog and a cat.
"When faced with their owner, dogs exhibited a striking right-sided bias in the amplitudes of tail wagging," the researchers write.
Tails kept wagging to the right when dogs were shown an unfamiliar person and the cat.
The human stranger elicited less wagging than the owner, and the cat - a four-year-old European male placed in a small metal cage - the least wagging of all.
But when shown a large, unfamiliar and intimidating four-year-old male Belgian shepherd malinois, also kept in a cage, the tails leaned consistently leftwards.
Dogs also wagged their tails to the left when they were on their own, means that they like company.
However, it is unlikely that people can benefit from this discovery when approaching a dog as the dogs tend to move about constantly, making the right-left bias often so subtle it can only be spotted with video analysis.
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