Barking and marking: decoding the language of dogs | Chris Ramsay | TEDxClevelandStateUniversity

what if I told you you could get your dog to do more by saying less what if I told you that if you communicate your dog in the wrong language you could actually cause them to bark bite chew and chase and generally misbehave that sounds crazy right the truth is the owner dog relationship is complicated especially in the US where owners want to bond with their dog by treating them like humans our relationship goes back some 15,000 years US households are filled with millions of dogs lots of good ones and lots of really bad ones we have phrases in our vocabulary like man's best friend and stop acting like a so why after all this time haven't we figured these guys out the truth is it's a communication problem and the problems now with them it's with us if we rewind the canine timeline back several million years we can get an accurate picture of their behavior from their ancient ancestors and by that I mean wolves canines wolves wild dogs domestic dogs communicate all the time one of the problems that humans have is this communication is typically quiet humans are much more vocal verbally physically affectionate than canines are and a canine world most communication is done by positioning body language and some vocalization how you carry yourself where you are in relation to the rest of the pack how and when you vocalize tells us volumes so let's look at those three aspects first positioning body language and vocalization canine pack hierarchy works like this pack leaders a bonded remaining pair for wolves are in charge of virtually everything the pack does everyone else as you can see there is no middle management in the canine pack there's no VPS no assistant to the Comptroller you're either in charge or you're not they have several jobs during the day hunting patrolling eating sleeping fending off intruders with a territory of about 50 to 100 square miles they patrol about a tenth of that every single day pack leaders in front leading the patrols leading the hunts and evaluating any approaching strangers if you're walking your dog and he's out front there's a good chance he thinks he's in charge looks like this sometimes it looks like this ever open a door and your dog goes out first ever walk up the stairs and your dog zooms by you yeah we all know what's going on here they're in charge pack leaders also carry themselves in a very assertive way head up back straight assertive yet calm pack followers will show their submission and get down lower curve their back sometimes took their tail maybe show you their belly sometimes the xep a little bit marking also part of pack life puppies when they're younger do their business in and around the den and mom cleans it up by the time they're six months old they're taken on full patrols with the rest of the pack where they still just do their business the pack leaders deposit their scent how and where you leave your scent is who you are back at home puppies oh and dogs that do their business in the yard is a human equivalent of babies wearing diapers dogs that do it on the walk it's like wearing big pants pack leaders also the only ones that lift their leg it gets the scent higher up it's a visual signal to the rest of the pack they're also the only ones that scratch the ground after doing their business just to remind everybody I'm the one in charge here there's a big fat bonus for you all now it doesn't matter how many dogs I'm walking to my neighborhood if anybody's lifting their leg or scratching the ground it's me now I don't because it tends to freak out the neighbors okay vocalising also part of pack life but not as much as you would think predators are quiet unless they have to be otherwise loud barking bark bark bark mark is reserved for dramatic events fighting defending killing hey buddy he's going out later howling is used to assemble the pack back to a given location or to broadcast their territory to neighboring packs whining is used by the youngest members of the pack to indicate their submission to ask for food - one attention if you would like to put yourself at the bottom of your pack use a high-pitched voice or what we call baby talk who's my cute Louie who did I get on that one here they get unknowing using a high-pitched voice with a nervous dog can make them pee right in front of you use it for the excited ones the humpers and jumpers they'll do more of that with an aggressive dog you can cause a bite if you'd like your dog to bark more and be unstable and super excited then yell like hell stop barking I said damn it stop barking no bardo mark you think you're telling him to stop and actually he's getting more excited and agitated you're thinking if I just yell louder he'll stop he thinks bark bark bark this is awesome we're all barking kill their bark bark bark bark if everybody in the canine pack was howling and barking and whining all the time dinner runs away they all know where you are rabbits squirrels deer they all run away even returning pack members are quiet sniffing and wagging is played on the meet and greets jumping up and vocalizing is not just like it's your house if your dog barks the doorbell rushes to the door nips bites lunges of strangers or even family they are taking that pack leadership spot and it's just plain rude the last thing I'm going to touch on is the canine warning system and this is very important it's easy to see when your dog is happy especially when you get close to them you might get a big soft way if you're special you get a circle wag the more difficult piece is to see when they're not happy works like this warning number one eyes go wide stop blinking body goes stiff mouth goes shut this step is very quiet and very telling warning number two maybe a growl maybe showing a teeth maybe both sometimes the growl is so low if you're not paying attention you won't hear it warning number three is a bite sometimes multiple typically not hard enough to puncture but hard enough to send a message I warned you twice now stop doing what you're doing sometimes this step is quiet - I hear you buddy sometimes it's noisy and full of drama so when we take into account dogs communicate differently than humans do you're right they position themselves differently they see and sniff the world differently they mark differently they vocalize differently than we do it's easier to have a more cohesive relationship with your dog you can abuse your dog by yelling kicking the screaming making them dangerous and unstable and we've all seen other people do that on the flip side you can mentally wreck your dog I give them too much verbal and physical affection and talking to them like they're humans my goal tonight is not to teach you how to train your dog but give you some sort of background on instincts and habits that they have from way far back my official title is canine specialists fancy way of saying dog trainer but that's not really what I do good dog trainers don't train dogs they train people people to communicate with their dogs and a language they understand so I hope tonight that I made you look beyond perception about canine communication I hope I made you look at your dog I made you look at yourself how are you carrying yourself where are you in relation to the rest of your pack how are you really communicating with your dog verbally and more importantly non-verbally okay so what's a dog talk without an actual dog not our buddy the Snickers Snickers is a beagle bloodhound he's very vocal as you heard so the last thing we're going to do for some k9 fun we're gonna do a little howling and here's where I need you to not be quiet you like that carpet denture tonight we're going to Hal together as a big pack we're going to broadcast our TED talk territory to everybody okay we're going to do this by having Snickers has a special command for this I'll give him the command and I'll ask you to join in he really likes the more people to do this he loves it we're all on board you had to up there in the balcony we're on board okay Snickers war fire sound the alarm sound the alarm stell the alarm there's a fire sound the alarm who oh good boy good boy good dogs thank you very much mom buddy here we go

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 163,876

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Animals, Leadership

Id: Lj9igX-BMG8

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2015