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Tale of the tail
By Gina Spadafori
April 25, 2007
Keep meaning to blog this article from the NY Times:
Every dog lover knows how a pooch expresses its feelings.
Ears close to the head, tense posture, and tail straight out from the body means “don’t mess with me.” Ears perked up, wriggly body and vigorously wagging tail means “I am sooo happy to see you!”
But there is another, newly discovered, feature of dog body language that may surprise attentive pet owners and experts in canine behavior. When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.
A study describing the phenomenon, “Asymmetric tail-wagging responses by dogs to different emotive stimuli,” appeared in the March 20 issue of Current Biology. The authors are Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at the University of Trieste in Italy, and two veterinarians, Angelo Quaranta and Marcello Siniscalchi, at the University of Bari, also in Italy.
Here’s the rest.
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Oh my goodness, it’s true. I’ve always been aware of my Afghan’s tail wag; low wag, high wag, little wag or wide wag, but never noticed if it was more to the right or left.
So right after reading this, I called him over, gave him a good back rub and yes, his tail wag was noticably to the right. How cute.
The only time I scold Ziggy is when he eats my cat’s left over food before I can get a chance to put it up away. I get a low wag from him when I say “No, you know you’re not suppose to eat their food!” Next time, I’ll take note to see if his tail wag is more to the left.
Comment by Annie — April 25, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
Hi, Itch has a new one.
Drs. Fosters & Smith Products Recalled Due to Rice Protein
Another pet food maker — Drs. Fosters & Smith — is issuing a recall due to the use of Wilbur-Ellis rice protein (scroll down their page to view the notice).
The recalled products are:
* Drs. Foster & Smith Adult Dry Lite Dog Food
* Drs. Foster & Smith Adult Dry Lite Cat Food
Comment by Steve — April 25, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
Fosters and Smith were one of the companies I had on my short list of manufacturers who had not yet weighed in on the issue.
Their website never put out any sort of notice one way or another, which is why I have kept my eye on them.
So, no comment is definitely a sign to be watched.
Comment by Carole — April 25, 2007 @ 2:57 pm
Does everyone have their postcards ready to go out on Saturday? Mine are ready! It was nice to work on a “project”. Makes me feel more involved and like I’m am maybe flexing just a little muscle. Very disappointed in the response to this issue here in Michigan. Was GREATLY surprised to see two congressman from MI at Tuesday’s hearing. No mention of it TV, paper or otherwise. Wouldn’t have even known had it not been for Christie’s liveblogging (I can’t even imagine what it took to accomplish that!) Just a small fish in a very large…and probably polluted…sea.
Comment by PJ — April 25, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
So is it my left/right as I look at my dog or the dog’s left/right???
Comment by nikandboots — April 26, 2007 @ 6:11 am