Not cool!: Dog behavior in videos is often misunderstood

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Dog videos are popular on social media. But experts warn that in many cases the animals featured are not as comfortable as most viewers think.

Worryingly, it is often not even noticed how stressed the dog actually is – apparently not even by their owners, which can lead to critical situations. A research team in the journal “Applied Animal Behavior Science” explains: “We advocate for increased education for both adults and children about communication with dogs.”

Dogs have a wide repertoire of body language, signals, and vocalizations to communicate. However, it is said that many people often misunderstand these instructions or do not even realize them. In most of the videos presented on social media, it seems that the dog is not feeling well, but viewers still expressed their “likes” with their likes.

The team, led by Elizabeth Ann Walsh from the Pet Behavior Center in Cork, Ireland, analyzed 190 particularly popular videos that received a large number of likes on social media platforms. In the videos, she can be seen playing with, petting and cuddling dogs. It was recorded what signals dogs gave about their mood through their behavior.

Fear and confusion

As the researchers explain, animals often show discomfort, fear, confusion, and anxiety; the people who interact with them clearly don’t realize this. Typical indicators of stress include turning the head, blinking, freezing, yawning, licking the person, laying the ears back, and panting.

It’s alarming that people interact with their furry friends without understanding their body language or voice. A typical example in videos is hugging and hugging, which is sometimes difficult for dogs to interpret and understand: When dogs put their paws on another dog (similar to a human hug), it is often said to be scary.

Yawning as a sign of stress

Submissiveness, on the other hand, means licking the mouth in most cases and is not always a sign of love and affection. People often find it amusing when a dog yawns heartily, smacks its lips, or turns its head away; however, these may be signals of discomfort, stress, fear or nervousness.

Many times the people seen in the video and those watching the video clearly did not realize how unhappy or uncomfortable a dog actually felt in the situation depicted. This not only means suffering for the dog, but also a risk for the owner, because in some cases the animal may react aggressively at some point if it feels that it is being abused too much through hugging and pressure. (SDA)

Source : Blick