How to speak dog

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It would really be hard to live with someone without speaking the same language, wouldn’t it? People expect us to understand what their words mean, so it would really help if they could also take some time to learn what our bodies are saying. 

We are communicating ALL the time. You just have to learn to speak dog. 

A great place to start is by watching What Your Dog is Desperately Trying To Tell You (https://youtu.be/bstvG_SUzMo ), courtesy of an amazing website: www.thefamilydog.com

BTW, your trainer will tell you this, but I think it's important to say here that if we growl (our way of telling you that we've reached the point where the next step may be biting, but we're really trying to hold back, and hoping you'll listen...) and you yell at us for doing it, we may just go right to biting without the warning next time (since you told us growling is bad...), so don't do that. While we're on the subject, keep in mind that when you tighten up on that leash when you see another dog coming, we can tell you’re pretty nervous. It makes us wonder if maybe there IS something to worry about. Remember, emotions travel up and down the leash... 

Last thing (promise :-)): because we communicate with our bodies, please don’t dress us up in silly clothes or tell our groomers to cut our whiskers (we need those!) or make our hair look funny. Besides embarrassing us in front of our friends, it makes it really hard for them to tell what we are saying. By the way, if your poodle looks like a topiary, you might be in the wrong place. Just sayin’…