How to Read Your Dog's Emotions | Dr. Karolina Westlund & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | How do you think about animals?

00:00:03.700 | Like, what's driving this inquiry in terms of their emotional and their cognitive life?

00:00:08.860 | First of all, I think that we humans are also an animal species.

00:00:14.140 | And that we tend to sort of put ourselves on a pedestal and thinking that we are one

00:00:22.260 | and then animals are like this, the other, as if it were homogeneous, which is, it really isn't.

00:00:30.580 | So each animal species have their own adaptation.

00:00:34.540 | We have our own adaptations and each animal, all the other animal species that we surround

00:00:40.080 | ourselves with do as well.

00:00:42.260 | So I don't know if that really answers your question, but I tend to, so the work I do is

00:00:50.440 | to sort of try to help animals live better lives with humans.

00:00:55.800 | And that very often starts with understanding how that animal species would live in the wild

00:01:01.680 | and the type of life that they have, whether they're a predator, whether they're a prey animal

00:01:07.120 | species, how they process the world, the type of information that they take in.

00:01:13.760 | So for instance, we might see a dog who's wagging his tail and we might think that

00:01:20.200 | it's only happy dogs that wag their tails, but actually tail wagging is seen in many different

00:01:25.080 | contexts.

00:01:25.680 | And we might think of it as a visual communication thing, but actually it could be that they're

00:01:33.320 | dispersing scent.

00:01:34.340 | The tail wag will sort of, that scent will waft over to you so you can take in information

00:01:42.240 | about my current emotional state.

00:01:43.960 | They definitely have scent glands back there.

00:01:45.680 | Oh yeah.

00:01:46.400 | Yeah.

00:01:46.620 | Interesting.

00:01:47.200 | So can we interpret dog wags of different types?

00:01:50.180 | Is there a way to do that?

00:01:51.500 | So one very interesting thing is that the dog wagging with a predominant left wag.

00:01:58.320 | Left for the dog?

00:01:59.600 | Left for the dog.

00:02:00.300 | So he's wagging on the left hand side of his body tends to be associated with negative emotional

00:02:05.080 | states.

00:02:05.920 | And on the right tends to be associated with positive emotional states.

00:02:09.320 | And the same, cats tend to look at the world from the left when in a negative emotional

00:02:18.520 | state.

00:02:18.920 | So.

00:02:19.320 | And from the right when in a positive emotional state.

00:02:21.720 | So looking from the left, meaning the left eye slightly forward.

00:02:25.980 | Yeah.

00:02:26.540 | The head tilted, so the right eye.

00:02:27.940 | So taking in that information with this eye.

00:02:29.800 | So.

00:02:30.240 | Okay.

00:02:30.560 | If you're scary.

00:02:31.140 | Some people are just listening.

00:02:32.280 | They're not watching.

00:02:32.960 | Okay.

00:02:33.140 | So they can't see this.

00:02:33.880 | So what Carolina is describing is if the head is turned slightly to the side, so the left

00:02:39.740 | eye is forward.

00:02:40.480 | Yeah.

00:02:40.880 | That's a negative.

00:02:42.000 | So they're looking at the stimulus with their left eye if that stimulus is fear inducing.

00:02:46.940 | And the opposite to the right hand side if it's more attractive to them.

00:02:52.880 | Yeah.

00:02:53.160 | So this is lateralized.

00:02:55.040 | Interesting.

00:02:55.480 | And then the tail wag, you said a dog wagging on the left hand side, more negative right

00:03:00.460 | hand side and more positive.

00:03:01.920 | What about full sweeps?

00:03:03.160 | Yeah.

00:03:03.520 | Full sweeps.

00:03:04.300 | And I don't know the details here, but certainly the type of tail wag, whether it's sort of very

00:03:10.780 | low and fast or whether it's high and sort of stiff will communicate different emotional

00:03:17.280 | states.

00:03:17.760 | Do you think that over time we learn these signals without realizing that we learn these

00:03:23.320 | signals?

00:03:23.580 | Yes, absolutely.

00:03:24.280 | Because we associate it with our dog being in a particular circumstance or behaving in

00:03:28.420 | a certain way.

00:03:28.880 | So studies have shown that we humans are actually, we learn to read dogs by exposure, even passive

00:03:36.000 | exposure, just living in an environment.

00:03:38.140 | And apparently if we live in a culture where dogs live close with humans, we get better in

00:03:44.600 | reading dogs.

00:03:45.360 | And then in cultures where dogs don't interact that much with humans.

00:03:50.960 | And so there's that.

00:03:52.320 | And there's also this, the issue that we are typically better at reading gross body language

00:03:59.760 | than we are at reading facial expressions.

00:04:01.960 | So what can you tell us about the facial expressions of dogs?

00:04:07.560 | When they make emotional facial expressions, they move different muscles than what humans do.

00:04:16.240 | What can you tell us about the facial expressions of dogs?

00:04:20.560 | Well, there's been some studies in the last couple of years that have looked at which muscles are

00:04:25.480 | moving when, in which contexts.

00:04:28.600 | So they'll expose the dog to different types of stimuli and they'll look at, they'll film

00:04:35.540 | the dog and look at what muscles are twitching, where is the face moving in response to these

00:04:41.320 | stimuli.

00:04:41.620 | So those types of studies have found that, you know, when a dog is exposed to, let's say,

00:04:48.640 | thunder or firework sounds, they will show a certain facial configuration.

00:04:54.180 | When their owner returns home after not being seen for several hours, they will show a different

00:05:00.640 | facial configuration and so on.

00:05:02.520 | So it seems that they do show facial expressions.

00:05:06.140 | It's just that some of those facial expressions are, it's not the same muscles that we show in

00:05:11.860 | the corresponding emotional state.

00:05:13.260 | So that would, I think, bias us to misreading dogs' facial expressions from that perspective.

00:05:21.420 | But then again, if we live with dogs, we start, we won't observe just the facial expression.

00:05:28.240 | We will observe the entire dog.

00:05:29.840 | And we're often better off reading their body language than we are reading their facial expression.

00:05:35.380 | Even though I think that studies also show that the face is where we look first.

00:05:40.260 | Which behaviors in dogs are maintained from interactions with other dogs when they interact

00:05:51.000 | with humans?

00:05:51.440 | For instance, if one is going to take a dog out on a walk and it's familiar with the sound

00:05:59.080 | of the leash coming off the hook or something like that, it's not uncommon for a dog to go into

00:06:04.100 | that long, full front leg stretch that people call down dog in yoga.

00:06:10.100 | And some people will say that's a kind of remnant of the puppy play kind of stance.

00:06:16.260 | Again, people say this stuff.

00:06:18.080 | People are often self-appointed dog experts.

00:06:22.500 | This is kind of interesting.

00:06:23.920 | And I've learned this from researching it online, that the various camps of quote-unquote dog

00:06:29.600 | experts disagree vehemently with each other.

00:06:32.340 | I mean, they write to me saying, you know, they're evil.

00:06:35.660 | This person is cruel.

00:06:37.260 | You know, they blame each other of animal cruelty for different training tools.

00:06:43.060 | We'll talk about that a little bit later.

00:06:44.400 | But dogs will do this down dog type movement, whatever it means, with other dogs, and they'll

00:06:52.040 | do it with humans.

00:06:52.740 | Do you think it means the same thing in those two different contexts?

00:06:56.800 | It most probably does.

00:06:57.960 | That play bow that you're describing is what's referred to as a meta signal for play.

00:07:03.120 | So it's typically shown in a play context.

00:07:07.060 | And I haven't seen it described.

00:07:09.080 | But then again, I'm not a dog owner.

00:07:10.420 | But I haven't seen it described in the context of let's go for a walk.

00:07:15.420 | But certainly, in the play context, as far as I know, dogs play a bit differently with

00:07:21.800 | humans than they do with other dogs.

00:07:23.840 | But they do enjoy playing with humans.

00:07:25.780 | And sometimes I think we humans have a hard time knowing whether what we're seeing is play

00:07:35.140 | or aggression, because there will be elements from the aggressive repertoire within a play

00:07:40.620 | bout.

00:07:41.600 | But typically, what we can do then is look for what's referred to as MARS, M-A-R-S.

00:07:46.480 | So M being the meta signals.

00:07:48.400 | So those play bows.

00:07:49.600 | Or in other species, it will be other behaviors that are sort of indicating that I want to play.

00:07:54.960 | I know chimpanzees have like 30 or 50 different meta signals for play.

00:08:00.800 | M-A-A is for activity shift.

00:08:04.820 | So we'll see different behaviors.

00:08:07.400 | They might be chasing.

00:08:08.340 | They might be pouncing.

00:08:09.560 | They might be wrestling, biting each other.

00:08:13.020 | But you'll see these activity shifts.

00:08:16.380 | And it's not in the same order as it would be if they were truly fighting.

00:08:20.620 | M-A-R.

00:08:23.520 | R is for role reversals.

00:08:25.480 | So you'll see that the dogs, if they're of different sizes or different sort of stamina or how big they are or how competent fighters they are, would be, that they'll take turns winning and losing.

00:08:40.200 | Yeah, I've seen that.

00:08:41.200 | Yeah, because it's not fun playing if you lose all the time.

00:08:44.360 | So in order to keep playing, the bigger dog needs to lose sometimes.

00:08:47.940 | So they need to, in order to keep this interaction going, that's the way to do that.

00:08:54.040 | And the last one, S, is self-handicap.

00:08:57.560 | So the larger dog will self-handicap themselves.

00:09:00.000 | You might see them doing a tug of war.

00:09:02.020 | And the large dog is just standing there and holding the thing.

00:09:05.400 | And the small dog is like pulling and really trying to get the thing.

00:09:08.760 | And the big dog is just standing there doing nothing.

00:09:11.080 | But then if a human takes over the toy and starts pulling, then the big dog will engage and start showing more of his strength and escalate that behavior.

00:09:20.460 | It's a beautiful thing when you see animals adjusting their level of kind of vigor in play so that the play can continue.

00:09:27.480 | It's very sweet.

00:09:28.640 | I mean, it speaks to a bigger question, which is, do dogs have empathy?

00:09:33.480 | Oh, I think so.

00:09:35.200 | Absolutely.

00:09:35.540 | I can't say I've seen any studies on it, but just, yeah.

00:09:41.860 | I mean, I think many dog owners are familiar with when we're grieving, a dog will often come closer as opposed to moving further away.

00:09:51.640 | I mean, I've seen some incredible moments.

00:09:56.440 | You know, we interpret these things, right?

00:09:57.840 | We anthropomorphize.

00:09:58.860 | But I had someone in my home years ago who was grieving a death in her family and Costello came and, you know, put a paw on her knee.

00:10:08.060 | And it's hard to not interpret that as a meaningful moment of empathy.

00:10:13.320 | Who knows what he was experiencing?

00:10:15.540 | Maybe he was experiencing distress for all I know.

00:10:18.240 | But the more pleasant interpretation is that he wanted to extend comfort.

00:10:23.700 | I think it makes sense from the evolutionary perspective that social animals who live in a cohesive social group are good at reading each other's emotional state and also good at sort of trying to buffer negative emotions if it's possible to do that.

00:10:47.200 | And so I would expect it with any of the sort of more cognitively advanced species, I would expect some type of empathy.

How to Read Your Dog's Emotions | Dr. Karolina Westlund & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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