It turns out, dogs do laugh, and it has nothing to do with their wagging tails. I stumbled upon an interesting research paper, documenting a study conducted in 2005 by Patricia Simonet. She and her team had previously collected audio of dogs socializing and playing using a parabolic microphone so that researchers could remain at a distance sufficient to keep their presence from altering the dogs' behavior. They discovered that when dogs made a particular chuffing sound, much like a pant, but with a more complex frequency range, other dogs responded with similar sounds, play bows, or even a play face and initiation of a game of chase. When these recorded sounds were played back to dogs in a shelter environment, they discovered that the dogs who heard the laugh playbacks had a significant reduction in stress behaviors. Most fascinating to me was the fact that not only did their stress markers decrease, but most offered pro-social behaviors, including chuffing back and bowing. She repeated the experiment with a group of fifteen puppies and found that one and all responded to the recorded dog laughter with happy romping about.
Interestingly enough, a few other researchers have tried to recreate this chuff sound themselves and it's not easy. For a human to make this breathy pant, without creating vocal vibrations, is tough! They discovered that mostly they just confused their canine subjects or the dogs had no response at all. For those who could mimic the sound accurately enough, they were rewarded with those same pro-social behaviors Simonet noted in her study: play bows, wagging tails, and friendly approaches. Through trial and error, Simonet was able to create the sound for herself and found that even when she offered the canine laugh to shelter dogs, it resulted in similar pro-social behaviors. Why is this important?
Reducing canine stress, wherever it shows up, is a worthwhile endeavor. Whether in a shelter, veterinary hospital, or your own home, reducing your dog's stress increases their quality of life. For people like myself who spend a lot of time observing, treating, and interacting with anxious dogs, I'd love to be able to recreate this sound. I already go to great lengths to present myself to anxious dogs in a non-threatening fashion: I don't stare, I don't loom, and I let them choose whether to interact with me or not. It would be interesting to see if I could convince some of them to choose to interact faster if I could laugh like a dog. I don't believe, however, that it would help every anxious dog, even if I could make the sound. For dogs who are profoundly anxious, playing that canine laugh, or a human attempt at it, would likely be viewed as confusing at best, and downright rude at worst. Sort of like someone trying to jolly you out of your stressful mood by cracking jokes and making light of it, which just ends up making the situation worse.
Okay...here comes the fun part. Dogs will laugh when initiating play with their owners as well, so we can all conduct little mini-experiments of our own. Grab a toy or position yourself as you do when initiating play with your dog and then watch and listen to them carefully. See that wide grin? That likely precedes the canine laugh once they get into play mode. If you have more than one dog, watch their play sessions. See what happens when one dog exhibits pro-social behavior (a bow, perhaps); does the other dog laugh and then the game begins? It's really a fascinating way to spend an afternoon and I can confirm that it's a lot more fun than balancing your checkbook.
As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.
No comments:
Post a Comment