© Marco de Kloet

A gentle greeting or play behavior with one dog doing a muzzle grab to another dog.

In her book “Inside of a Dog”, Alexandra Horowitz discusses how dogs respond to raincoats, muzzles, and other items they are asked to wear by humans.  She says “There are occasions when wolves get pressed upon the back or head: it is when they are being dominated by another wolf, or scolded by an older wolf or relative.  Dominants often pin subordinates down by the snout.  This is called muzzle biting, and accounts, perhaps for why muzzled dogs sometimes seem preternatually subdued.”

Notice in all the photos of canids muzzle grabbing or muzzle biting each other, how little apparent struggling appears to be offered by the dog whose muzzle is held.  They do indeed seem subdued by the muzzle bite.

© Monty Sloan

Young puppies practicing muzzle grabs they will use as adults in greeting other wolves.

© Monty Sloan

Adult wolves engaged in greeting behaviors including a muzzle grab.  According to the Wolf Ethogram (Wolf Park, Indiana) “A soft muzzle grab is taking of another wolf by the muzzle gentl.  May be accompanied by other greeting and submissive behaviors.  Sometimes the grabbed wolf may be led around by the muzzle.  Muzzle grabbing is often incorporated into food begging.”

©Monty Sloan

According to the Wolf Ethogram (Wolf Park, Indiana), the Hard Muzzle Bite means “grabbing the muzzle and applying enough force to make the grabbed wolf whimper.  Muzzle biting is often accompanied by other threat behaviors which may also elicit whimpering.”  Notice the threatening agonistic pucker and lumpy whisker bed of the biting wolf.

Pan, the Collie, routinely groomed Luca’s face. Sometimes, Luca would grow impatient with the face scrubbing, and would stop Pan by doing a gentle muzzle grab.

Here’s what Dee has to say about the photo above:

“Dazzle is in a tunnel, a few seconds before the shutter clicked the photo, all her teeth were showing. She had a toy behind her … so was guarding it from her canine companion, Bronte. Dazzle has some really weird play behaviors, surely not the normal.. She gives mixed signals to other dogs all the time. She had plenty of play time with other dogs as a youngster and grew up at the training center.. but early on it was clear she really didn’t want to play. She would go into the group appearing submissive and within a few minutes had all the other dog figured out and would separate them into corners and she, standing or sitting .. with a “smile on her face” had complete control of the situation.. She came from heavy herding lines .. so I am assuming controlling space and other dogs was her mission in life … AN assumption on my part for sure.

She can play, but quickly begins displaying very mixed signals to the other dogs. She often prefers to leave play environments and separate herself from the other dogs.

The photo below is a good example of Dazzle’s quick mood changes during a play bout with a very familiar playmate.”

© Dee Ganley

What I want to say about bows is that only a few of what many call “play bows” actually have anything to do with play invitations. Certainly, canids (dogs, wolves, coyotes, fox, etc) do use bows to invite play with a conspecific (animal of the same species) or a human. Bows are also used by canids in many other ways to signal many different messages, including testing their prey. The bow is most often the position of choice because it is the physical position from which the canid can move most easily in any direction with the best acceleration and least amount of reorganizing its body.

Bows are very often “metasignals,” in other words “communication about communication”. Metasignals are how dogs, wolves and other canids let each other know that what just happened or what is about to happen, is only play. It is the canine equivalent of human playful punch in the arm, a verbal jest or teasing sarcasm, which might be followed by the verbal disclaimer “just kidding”.

I particularly appreciate the concept that for some dogs shaking off is a transitional state, going from one activity or one mood to another. A psychiatrist friend of mine once said to me “that ambivalence is an emotion that reflects a transitional state”. So perhaps we could extrapolate backwards from that definition of ambivalence, that dogs shaking off are expressing ambivalence about what just happened, or what might be about to happen. A psychiatrist friend of mine once said to me “that ambivalence is an emotion that reflects a transitional state”. So perhaps we could extrapolate backwards from that definition of ambivalence, that dogs shaking off are expressing ambivalence about what just happened, or what might be about to happen. Check out this link below, as a matter of fact, check out all the “Time Warp” videos they are great, especially the one of a dog drinking.

Pawlifts are one of those canine communication behaviors that can have several different meanings depending on context. I liken this cross over of behavioral signals to some of the more confusing aspects of the English language.

Consider “there,” “their,” and “they’re,” as just one example of how a word that sounds exactly the same in each of its spellings, but has totally different meanings.

Pawlifts can be seen as part of appeasement offerings, friendly greetings, and may also appear when a dog is very tense and issuing distance increasing warnings or threats. The context is very important, as is the posture of the dog, and are other simultaneous signals from the dog.

© Barbara Handelman

Canids are capable of experiencing multiple feelings simultaneously. In particular, canids can be both submissive and aggressive at the same time.
Some canids initially react to threats by behaving submissively. They display appropriate signs of active submission by offering appeasement signals or otherwise acquiescing to the threatening postures of the other canid or human.

Some canids might offer signs of passive submission, by rolling onto their backs and exposing their vulnerable belly or inguinal area.

Sometimes, the threatening canid or human ignores or does not accept the offered signs of submission. The aggressor may escalate his threats instead. The submissive canid’s options become limited to flight, immobility (freeze) or fight. If flight is not possible, the canid is likely to resort to the survival mode – bite the human or fight the other canid. The submissive canid resorts to aggression, aptly called submissive aggressive behavior.

Dogs also display obnoxious submission in their interactions with other dogs and with humans. In a social play situation some dogs interact only by offering submissive and appeasement behaviors including, but not limited to, rolling on the ground, submissive urination, effusive licking, hip nudging and other active submissive behaviors that preclude another dog from actually interacting with them. The potential playmate cannot interrupt the submissive behavior barrage.

Obnoxious submission may confer some sort of evolutionary advantage to the submissive dog or might be a by product of artificially selected traits. In the wild, a dominant wolf may relinquish food or other resources to a subordinate, just to relieve himself of the annoyance of being the recipient of so much obnoxious submissive behavior.

Some dogs are so effusive in their greetings to humans that the person may feel overwhelmed or annoyed by the dog’s persistent body wiggles, squirming while being petted, rolling around at their feet, repetitive hip nudging, and submissive urination.

Dogs being rehabilitated after a history of an abusive relationship with a former owner, may use obnoxious submission with new care takers. Some abused dogs generalize the abusive experience to include all new people they meet – thus their submissive greetings may seem excessive or obnoxious.