When I was still a child, my mother, who was somewhat of a minor expert in dogs (having been around animals pretty much all her life) told me when a dog shows you his underside, that is call the Submission Position and it means he is telling you you are the “top dog”. Apparently if a dog gets into a fight with another dog, it will assume this position to show the other dog that the other dog has won.
Presently, sometimes our dog Joy will assume this position. So far it is hard to discern a logic to it, she does it for no APPARENT reason sometimes. I know she shouldn’t fear us since we show her nothing but love. (Yeah, one time my father was trying to move her to another room, when she assumed this position. When my father tried to move her by grabbing her collar–she bit him! Finally we moved her to the other room by putting a leash on her.) So as you can see, in this situation, not only KNOWING dog language, but knowing how to RESPOND to it is very important.
When she shows me her belly, I pet her underside to let her know she should not fear us humans. (But it is hard to know what this means to her since she still holds this position a little more. Weird) My question is simply this: What should we do when she shows us her underside? (Please realize my question is not what does it mean. I already know that .)
Keep in mind that your dog really doesn’t want to be your equal. A dog who knows her position in the household is a happy dog, even if that position is below all the others (although my dog keeps hoping that maybe, just maybe, he can be dominant over at least one cat. He can’t so far).
One of my dogs has elements of this: She’ll flop on her back and let you pet her belly, but after a short while her eyes get kind of glazed and wide and she begins to attack your hand to mouth it while growling (not menacingly, just excitedly). She’ll also scratch and kick and even thrash like a fish. After that, she usually races off to find a frisbee for a game of tug and fetch.
With dogs it is typically a submissive posture, as noted.
With cats it can anything from an invitation to play ( “hand severing” ), to trust and affection ( “I trust you to rub my tummy” ), to defensive posture ( “I will fuck you up with my four paws of death” ).
While rolling over on their backs and exposing their bellies is an inherent submission posture for dogs, it’s also possible for an individual dog to have learned this same posture as just a request to have her belly scratched.
With our chihuahua, it means “Time to con the humans once more into believing I am submissive. See, belly! See, cute doggy! There! OK, now go get me some food treats, dammit. Now!”
However, some dogs do. The most serious behavioural problem I deal with in dogs is dominance aggression.
The ideal dog is one that is submissive to all humans in the household without being pathologically submissive. Exposing the belly is submissive behavior. The next step in submission is urination while exposing the belly; not something you want to have going on.
When I was in college one of my fraternity brothers got a new puppy - some kind of miniature German shepherd (at least that’s what she looked like). I don’t know if it was a result of living with 50 men who had their own social hierarchy, but unfortunately she became overly submissive – if you pat her on the head or scratched her behind the ear, she would pee on the carpet. Her owner eventually had to give her away (or risk getting kicked out of the house).
Just to be clear, acknowledging your status as “alpha” does not mean your dog fears you. So going belly-up does not mean “please don’t hurt me.” (I’m not sure but it sounds like you think this from the OP). It just means “Hi boss!” Dogs pretty much need to live within a hierarchy and know their place in it. A dog with a firm place in a hierarchy - below you for your safety as vetbridge points out - is a happy dog.
Also, the idea that you must be dominant to your dog is not universally accepted. For an interesting story about a dog that “shared” dominance with the owner, check out Ted Kerasote’s book Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. (interesting book, but I am not endorsing his ideas)
My dog (a golden retriever) always got a belly rub if she rolled over. When grooming her, she would also roll over without being told. (In both cases, any kind of contact just below her rib cage would result in leg kicking – usually just one leg, but occasionally both would start moving. So cute!) If she was playing by herself, sometimes she would roll on her back, clutch a toy between her front paws, and kick her back legs around in circles while chewing on/shaking the toy. We called it “the bicycle”.
One time I remember her coming up and laying down, then immediately rolling onto her back. She kept following me around and repeating this. Thinking she just wanted attention, I finally gave in and rubbed her belly – only to encounter a large, hard, swollen lump that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise because of all of her fur. It turned out to be an abcess (which ruptured shortly after the vet saw it the first time). I guess she realized something was wrong, and that we should “fix” it?
Is there any way to trainan extremely submissive dog not to submissively urinate? My friend’s mother-in-law’s dog does that every time a “stranger” comes into their house, with the result that her owner has to put a diaper on her if she knows that company is coming over. I’m dreadfully fearful of ending up with a dog like that myself someday, and I’d like to know if there’s anything that can be done.
Yes. Obedience training helps, not because it is a lack of obedience, but because training helps with the dog’s “self esteem”. Also, exercises where a stranger comes in and you work with very slow, gradual acclimatization.
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If they know what ‘trust’ is, that’s when they are showing it.