Why do some dogs tilt their heads when you take to them?
Its soooo cute, but, why?
uh, that would be “talk” not take.
I could be way off, but I always thought it was to hear better. If you’ve got floppy ears, tilting would make the lower one hang away from your head.
Just a guess.
Dogs have really good hearing. Maybe when they hear something that doesn’t quite make sense – for example, noise coming from a radio (like with the RCA dog) or unusual pitches – they tilt their heads to get a better take on it, kinda like adjusting your rabbit ears to get better TV reception.
Since reading your question, I realized that my own dog, who is hard of hearing, doesn’t do that head-tilt thing anymore.
I miss it.
(In response to your postscript:
Which is why I don’t sit on vinyl.)
They do it because they know how cute we think it is. My dog will do that every now and then, and he’ll also sit down, then lean back, with his front paws in the air… it’s adorable. There’s no reason for it. He does it ‘cause he knows it never fails to get a reaction from me. The same goes for the head tilt. Freakin’ dog plays me like a fiddle.
[sub]As you can see, I really have no clue.[/sub]
For a minute, I thought this was going to be about some new redneck sport like cow tipping. “Hey cuzzin Jethro! Let’s get drunk an’ see if’n we cain’t find us some dogs to tilt!”
You know, I had the same thought, which is why I clicked the title of this thread. My initial reaction was ‘Dogs don’t sleep standing up!’
Moggy, Derleth,
I also assumed it had something to do with a new sport, but my first thought was: How do they get the dogs to hold the lances?
Um, this might sound a little weird, but I MYSELF ‘tilt’ my head at the sound of high-pitched or odd noises. Not only that, but I have the ability to move my (right) ear upwards (as I’m sure other people can) and I think that from a physiological standpoint, it straightens out the ear canal to allow better sound reception (although I don’t get any realized improvement).
Anyone else?
I didn’t know the answer to this myself… until I came to Korea!
Walk into a room full of Korean English students, and begin talking… notice how they all begin to tilt their heads as they try to figure out what the f*** you’re talking about…
My conclusion: they do it because they don’t know what you mean!
I had heard (though I couldn’t tell you where) that dogs tilt their heads when you talk to them to let you know they are listening (this could also apply to people). It seems reasonable to me, and it certainly beats a blank stare…
I always wonder why Dubya does that, but I guess Astro has answered the whole thing for us
It sure makes sense that it signals lack of understanding, have you ever seen Mr. Bush NOT tilt his head when he’s spoken to? 
— G. Raven
My dog always tilts her head in the same direction, too. Unless I’m trying to take her picture…then she looks away.
Derleth, moggy, I also thought vanilla was proposing a new redneck sport.
Er, sorry vanilla, I don’t know.
The tilt of the head helps the dog pin-point where a sound is coming from. If a sound is coming from pretty much right in front of them, the sound waves hit the ears at pretty much the same time. Tiltng the head puts the ears in a different plane as the sound waves. This helps the dog tell where the sound is coming from.
Then the dog learns that tilting the head is just so darn cute, it’s people talk to it more. So what starts out as a survival trait, quickly turns into one more manipulative gambit on the fuzzy con artist’s part.
-Rue.
Just for the record, I work at a dog registry, and I thought the title was a misspelling of “dog titling.”
I had almost the same idea, except I was picturing children in plate armour on the backs of dogs.
I’d venture to guess that the reason they do this is the same reason people look up when they try to remember something or calculate math in their head. Also, remember that tilting the head is a common gesture for human puzzlement as well. There is a reflexive process by which eye movements feedback to the reticular activating system, an area of the brain. There are some amazing studies, some by whacky NLP practitoners, that catalog all eight eye directions (ie, compass) with a certain mental task, remembering something visually, constructing something visually, remembering something audible, etc. I know this is used by interrogators to get a clue as to whether people are lying or not. For instance if you ask someone a question that might take some thought to remember, like the color of their first bike, they would remember the visual memory and look up and to the left. If they were lying, they would have to construct the image and therefore look up and to the right. Anyway there are other cases of typical actions for a mental task - lip biting, brow knitting (possibly) ,etc. In some cases they are social cues to indicate “Yes i am thinking about what you said” but others are definately imo, reflexively accessing different areas of our brains.
I agree with kid – a tilted dog’s head means puzzlement. Our dog would tilt his head when he saw something new that he didn’t understand. I always thought that was the point of “Nipper”, the dog in the “His Master’s Voice” painting (symbol of RCA Victor in the U.S., and of HMV record stores in the UK)-- he’s tilting his head because he can’t figure out why His Master’s Voice is coming from the gramophone bell.
So your dog is saying he doesn’t understand you. You might as well be talking in Korean. (See Gary Larson’s infamous cartoon :What we say/What a Dog Hears")
I believe you’re right. Owls do the same thing. Their ears are offset, and swiveling their heads helps to locate the sound source.
(WAG follows, based on something I read eons ago) I believe that dogs’ ears are tuned to different frequencies. One ear hears higher pitched sounds better. Tilting their heads may allow the appropriately-pitched ear to hear better.
Lastly, ever see any of those Animal Planet-type shows when the fox is trying to locate a mouse under the snow, in the weeds, whatever? They tilt their heads back and forth to locate the varmint before pouncing.
Actually, that gives me an idea.
Parakeet tilting.
Sneak up on em while they are sleeping and…