Vallortigara doesn't think that the dogs are necessarily intending to communicate those emotions to other dogs. Rather, he says, the bias in tail wagging is likely the automatic byproduct of differential activation of the left versus the right side of the brain. But that's not to say that the bias in wagging and its response might not find practical uses; veterinarians and dog owners might do well to take note.
"It could be that left/right directions of approach could be effectively used by vets during visits of the animals or that dummies could be used to exploit asymmetries of emotional responses," Vallortigara says.
Dogs visual stimuli (naturalistic and silhouette) exhibiting prevalent left- or right-asymmetric tail wagging. Stationary stimuli not wagging their tail are also showed (pictures are single frames from moving videos).
(Photo Credit: Current Biology, Siniscalchi et al.)
Dogs visual stimuli (naturalistic and silhouette) exhibiting prevalent left- or right-asymmetric tail wagging. Stationary stimuli not wagging their tail are also showed (pictures are single frames from moving videos).
(Photo Credit: Current Biology, Siniscalchi et al.)
You might think a wagging tail is a wagging tail, but for dogs there is more to it than that. Dogs recognize and respond differently when their fellow canines wag to the right than they do when they wag to the left. The findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Oct. 31 show that dogs, like humans, have asymmetrically organized brains, with the left and right sides playing different roles.
(Photo Credit: Siniscalchi et al.)
Source: Cell Press