Often when we observe our dog, we tell ourselves that it seems that he only needs to speak to communicate. His body language is very rich, and there are many situations in which he behaves in one way or another that is very easy for us to understand. But it is not like that when we caress him and he lowers his precious ears.
That's when we wonder why does my dog lower his ears when I pet him and we have many doubts. Doubts that you will find your answers below. 🙂
Why does he do this?
Our furry can transmit different emotions to us with his ears, which are these:
Agrado
If he approaches us, or we are the ones who go towards him, and we caress him, if he is an animal that has already gained enough confidence in us, he will most likely enjoy each caress we give him. Anyway, to be sure that he is really delighted we will have to look at how his eyes are, if he makes any movement with his body, and, ultimately, how he is behaving.
When a dog is happy we will observe that you close your eyes totally or partially, your mouth will be closed or on the contrary slightly open, and you will be relaxed. In addition, it will raise its head so that we can caress it better.
Shyness or fear
If it is a shy or fearful dog, or it is simply one that has not been well socialized when it was a puppy, if we try to pet it it will behave in a special way. He will not look at us calmly, but keep his ears back and lower his head. Also, it will lick its muzzle, something that is considered a calm signal; that is, a signal that tells us not to get closer, to stop caressing it if we have already started to do it.
When a person ignores this message, what they are actually doing is making the animal feel even more uncomfortable, more tense, and it could attack. For this reason It is very important that we DO NOT caress the dogs that we do not know without first asking the human and without first observing the behavior of the dog..
What do a dog's ears transmit?
The different positions of a dog's ears can convey a lot to us. To make it easier for you to understand, below we tell you what they mean:
- Ears back: It is usually out of fear, especially if it also lowers its head and puts its tail between its legs.
- Ears back with the body down: when the dog has its ears back, its body is low and its hair is standing on end, it means that it has adopted an aggressive-defensive posture; In other words, he will defend himself against his opponent in principle by preventing him from hurting him, but if the situation becomes much more tense, he could attack.
- Ears erect and tilted forward: you are paying attention to something.
- Ears erect and very tilted forward: is very alert. It will show an offensive attitude, staring and opening its mouth showing its fangs.
- Erect ears, tail up and body forward: is ready to attack. It may be that another dog is approaching you, and / or that you have started to feel very uncomfortable or tense. In these cases, they will also have bristly hair and very dilated pupils.
As we have seen, the ears of our dog friends have a lot to tell us depending on the position they adopt. Knowing their different meanings will be very useful to better understand the body language of these animals, something that will undoubtedly end up reinforcing the bond we create with them, which is very interesting, don't you think? 🙂