Play

Play and Body Movement

Play Bow: when initiating play, dogs often start with a play bow and generally follow up with exaggerated facial and body movements. A playful dog's body movement will be loose and wiggly, with lots of movement and brief pauses during play. If the tail is relaxed and the body is wiggly it’s likely friendly. If the play bow is combined with stiff body language and tail and your dog is a resource guarder it may be quite threatening and the dog is using the bow to claim the food and create space and poised to attack.

Stiffening up: a dog who seems stiff, moves slowly, or who keeps moving away may not be interested in social interaction with a playful dog.

Looking away, sniffing, scratching, lying down, or other avoidance behaviors may also indicate that the play session is over.

A fearful dog may lean away, lean back, tremble, crouch, lower his body or head, or roll onto his side or back. Often, his eyes will often be fully open with large pupils, his forehead will be wrinkled, and his tail will be lowered or tucked.

An extremely fearful dog may freeze completely or frantically try to escape, and he may urinate or defecate when approached.

A dog displaying aggressive body language will look large, standing with his head raised above his shoulders. His body will be tense, with weight either centered or over all four feet or leaning slightly forward onto the front legs.

A dog displaying aggressive behavior may also have a wrinkled muzzle, a short lip, and a hard eye.