Left Leaning Dogs

[Rosetta]

Apparently which direction the tail wags has meaning :D

Sorry don't know how to "quote" the article

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/left-leaning-dogs-peturb-fellow-pooches/story-e6frgcjx-1226750484140

[Rozzie]

DOGS get stressed out when other dogs wag their tails to the left, Italian researchers have found.The discovery follows the team’s 2007 findings that dogs wag their tails more to the right when they feel happy or relaxed, and to the left when they feel threatened. Now it appears that other canines pick up on these tail-wagging cues.

The study, reported today in the journal Current Biology, monitored 43 dogs of various breeds while they were shown videos of another dog wagging its tail asymmetrically. They appeared more anxious and their hearts beat up to 50 per cent faster when the filmed dog wagged to the left.

Dogs may interpret a left-wagging tail as a “signal of impending danger”, the paper speculates, although they could also be capitalising on an opportunity to dominate a counterpart who is “signalling a withdrawal state”.

Co-author Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at the University of Trento, said it was unlikely that dogs deliberately communicated their feelings with lopsided tail-wagging. Rather, it was an “automatic by-product” of activation of a particular side of the brain.

Professor Vallortigara said right wagging indicated activation of the brain’s left hemisphere, which is associated with positive feelings. The right hemisphere, which prompts activity on the left side of the body, is linked with anxiety and fear.

This brain asymmetry, once considered unique to humans, has been detected in animals from gorillas and humpback whales to chickens, toads and bees. University of New England animal behaviourist Lesley Rogers, who was not involved in the latest study, said the new paper was a “real step forward”.

“There’s plenty of evidence of laterality in the behaviour of animals, but whether animals read it is a new thing. This paper says animals interpret that lateralised behaviour in social communication between members of their own species.”

Professor Rogers said other animals could exhibit similar interpretations. “We know that if a cockatoo looks with its left eye it’s more likely to attack than if it looks with its right eye. It may be that that (other cockatoos) know whether they’re being eyed off with a left eye, and keep away more.”

[mita]

I'm going cross-eyed trying to figure the direction of tail wagging with our tibbies. They have plumed tails that sit against their backs. When they wag them, it looks more circular ... like someone waving a pom-pom.

Edited November 6, 2013 by mita

[Tibbie_tabbie]

I'm going cross-eyed trying to figure the direction of tail wagging with our tibbies. They have plumed tails that sit against their backs. When they wag them, it looks more circular ... like someone waving a pom-pom.

Yes - lol! Get them to sit and then watch which way it wags :)

[Rosetta]

Jack has a definite twitch to the right - guess that means he's happy :D