Reading Dog Body Language 2
In this second part of identifying and reading dog body language, here is another picture of Mocha. She is holding a chewy treat. Is she displaying signals indicating she is happy/relaxed, or neutral, or nervous/anxious/fearful, or aggressive?
Mocha’s body language in this particular picture is indicating aggressive behavior (resource guarding of her chewy item).
Her eyes are showing a hard stare (think of like a challenge or back-off type of signal).
She is sitting, but with a tense body.
Her lips are pulled back to show teeth.
Her area from below the eyes to snout are pulled back, creating folds in the fur/skin. This is indicative of a more aggressive manner of lips pulled back to reveal teeth.
In other contexts if a dog’s mouth was open with teeth showing it might be something else like light panting if the folds and hard stare are not present.
Her ears are back more than what is normal, relaxed carriage for her.
If this was a video with audio, it would not be surprising for growling to be paired with these specific behaviors/body language.
The following picture might make it even more clear:
It’s mostly the same indicators listed above, but the display of teeth is more pronounced (the lips are pulled back more and gum is showing).
Why is it important to understand the signals our dogs are presenting? It provides us with information so we can better communicate and take action as necessary to help our dogs.
In this particular case, Mocha is communicating aggressive behaviors to protect her chewy item and tell the person close by to back off - this is good information for us to use to prevent escalation of unwanted behavior and to prevent bites.
To resolve this issue (in general), we can simply move away and let the dog enjoy the chewy with more space, or trade treats to get the item back (this is useful for when dogs have something that is inedible or may harm them if ingested), and/or we can provide positive reinforcement training to teach a dog to place an object/chewy in our hand (a fetch/retrieve behavior) or create positive associations with people approaching, touching the item, picking it up, touching/petting the dog while eating, and so on - note that this must be done in a very gradual step-by-step plan going at a pace the dog is comfortable (remaining below a threshold where the dog is upset to prevent bites).
Avoid anything confrontational in resource guarding situations. Grabbing the item, or forcefully attempting to take it, or punishing the dog will only make these behaviors worse, and could very easily lead to bites.