One of my cats does it, always when waiting for a response. He’s also the smartest cat I’ve ever had.
My parrots will do this, but only if they are currently “tuned in” to interacting. I think it is a learned signal for “Go on, I am listening”. Dogs are much better at interacting with humans then parrots, so I would expect they would easily learn to do this.
Pete, I see eye pinning or flashing (quick expansion and contraction of the pupil) as a “tuned in” signal in Eclectus parrots. Never seen the head tilt, how interesting.
The only one of my 3 dogs to do it is the one with the floppiest ears. Holly has totally sticky-upy ears and Ginger has half floppy ears and neither does it. Iggy’s ears either flop totally frontways (in half) or sideways (in quarters).
I firmly believe he does it for the same reason he does anything - he knows it’s adorable and we’re putty in his paws when he does it.
But the triangulation idea doesn’t work when the dog, let’s call him Buddy, stands when we’re both in silence, and he’s looking at me down the corridor to me, that quizzical cocked head. Im guessing: Come? Wait? Leash?
The ideal ready-position for sound alone would be central, favoring neither side. I can think that they have learned, from us when we talk to them in some occasions, we do this, which we do with people all the time: when we want to hear (paying attention to the confirmation) say, when catch something clearer said by someone who mutters, you’ll do a “What’s that” and cock and lift your head. And if you really want to make a visual point that you’re listening, you often do that, let alone in the raised-eyebrow addition with “Would you (would you care) to repeat that” to something you know damn well what you heard.
Also, in that great pug video I can’t see how triangulation is involved. Although it does make sense that the smaller the separation between ears the more difficult it is to localize sounds.
My dogs tilt their heads when they are listening very hard for a faint sound. For example, sitting in a room at the rear of the house but trying to figure out what’s happening in the street in front of the house. They will stare “through” the closed door and tilt their heads to listen.
That’s what I came hear to say. My ex had a puggle big floppy ears, he would cock his head when I spoke to him. It was clear he was moving his ears out of the way to hear better.
Other dogs without floppy ears likely do it to position their ears in a better place to hear better.
I read somewhere (don’t remember where, no cite) that this stare, which often happens when the dog wants something (usually food related), and which I at least interpreted as “pleeeeease let me have some of what you’re having” IS actually a dominance thing - an order: “give me some of what you"re having”. The dog is, so to speak, staring you down. So make of that what you will.
What she usually wants when I get The Stare is attention/play. If I persistently ignore her she will sometimes freak out and start running in circles. She has issues.
OMG that dog is so freakin’ adorable!!
It depends on whether they’re focusing on the phonemes or the intonation, according to below.
Which is neat, because I was planning on posting a poll on dog words independent of tone.
(I’m also pleased that I remember my corpses.)
Orienting Asymmetries in Dogs’ Responses to Different Communicatory Components of Human Speech
Victoria F. Ratcliffe, David Reby
Received: August 6, 2014; Received in revised form: October 2, 2014; Accepted: October 10, 2014; Published Online: November 26, 2014
Published: November 26, 2014
DOI: Redirecting
Summary
It is well established that in human speech perception the left hemisphere (LH) of the brain is specialized for processing intelligible phonemic (segmental) content (e.g., [ 1–3 ]), whereas the right hemisphere (RH) is more sensitive to prosodic (suprasegmental) cues [ 4, 5 ]. Despite evidence that a range of mammal species show LH specialization when processing conspecific vocalizations [ 6 ], the presence of hemispheric biases in domesticated animals’ responses to the communicative components of human speech has never been investigated. Human speech is familiar and relevant to domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), who are known to perceive both segmental phonemic cues [ 7–10 ] and suprasegmental speaker-related [ 11, 12 ] and emotional [ 13 ] prosodic cues. Using the head-orienting paradigm, we presented dogs with manipulated speech and tones differing in segmental or suprasegmental content and recorded their orienting responses. We found that dogs showed a significant LH bias when presented with a familiar spoken command in which the salience of meaningful phonemic (segmental) cues was artificially increased but a significant RH bias in response to commands in which the salience of intonational or speaker-related (suprasegmental) vocal cues was increased. Our results provide insights into mechanisms of interspecific vocal perception in a domesticated mammal and suggest that dogs may share ancestral or convergent hemispheric specializations for processing the different functional communicative components of speech with human listeners.
Related? Probably not but I want to tell it.
I have a cattledog. When I say his name, he quickly turns his head away. It’s very funny, really–looks like he’s saying “Don’t call me that!”
When I speak to him more, he actually turns his whole body so that he is facing away from me. Then he throws quick glances to one side or the other to keep an eye on me.
It’s all very obvious what he is doing. Cracks up anyone who witnesses it.
A cattledog breeder told me that it’s called “giving the anti-eye” and that it’s how the working dog keeps watch over cattle or sheep without spooking them.
Your dog just pwns you.
So the answer isn’t: Humans masturbating looks weird to them?
That seems clear just from watching this video Athena posted above:
The dogs almost always tilt their head precisely when the owner’s intonation goes up. And the owner clearly knows this (whether consciously or not), because he’s repeatedly raising his intonation in an exceedingly annoying and unnatural way in order to get them to to it.
zombie or no
they know that produces more treats.
Gunner the Great Dane does it. I think because it makes him look so damn cute when he turns his head and his ear flps over. That look always gets him extra scratches, hugs and treats.