Episode #271 Speaking Dog: A Clear Guide To Body Language

What do fear and stress actually look like in your puppy? In this education-packed episode, Amy gives you the foundation every puppy parent needs: how to read your dog’s body language.

Learn the clusters of signals that tell you if your puppy is relaxed, worried, or over threshold. We’ll cover soft eyes vs. whale eye, loose bodies vs. freezing, and why a wagging tail doesn’t always mean happy. Then we’ll dig into the early stress signals most people miss, like lip licks, yawns, shake-offs, and head turns.

You’ll walk away knowing exactly what to watch for and what to do in the moment to help your puppy feel safe. Because a puppy who feels safe is a puppy who can learn.

In this episode:

• How to read your puppy’s eyes, mouth, ears, posture, and tail
• The 10-step Canine Ladder of Stress and where to intervene
• Common scenarios where stress signals get missed
• Simple ways to reduce stress and build confidence

Perfect for: New puppy parents, anyone struggling with socialization, or dog owners who want to advocate for their dog better.

Transcript

Why Dog Whispers Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you ever wondered what your puppy is really trying to tell you, today's episode is for you. Today we are slowing down, we're getting fluent in speaking dog. I'm going to break down the body language signals and early stress signs that most people miss so you can spot discomfort before it turns into barking, lunging, or a meltdown. When you can read your dog's whispers, you can prevent the shouts. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast, the show designed to help you raise a confident, well-behaved puppy using positive practical training methods. Each week we'll explore real-life training strategies, break down common puppy challenges, and give you clear, step-by-step guidance you can start using right away. Whether you're dealing with potty training, biting, jumping, or just want to build a stronger bond with your pupp as their handler, you're in the right place. Hey everybody, welcome back to the puppy training podcast. If you've listened to me before, you know that I've talked about stress and fear. And I'll say things like, your puppy is over threshold, or that's a fear response. But I realized we've never really slowed down to give you a solid foundation on the podcast. So that's what we're going to do today. We are decoding dog. Because if you can't see the stress, you can't prevent it. And preventing it is where real confidence and socialization and training happens. Most behavior problems we get called about didn't start as bad behavior. They started as missed whispers. So a lip lick here, a head turn there. By the time we are seeing growling, lunging, or your dog shutting down, your puppy has been shouting for a while. We just missed it. So let's get fluent in those whispers. Now, dogs talk all day long. They just don't use words. They use their entire body from nose to tail. And context is everything. So a wagging tell at the dog park is not the same as a wagging tell at the vet. So I'm going to give you a cheat sheet for reading the entire picture. Let's start with eyes. Eyes tell the emotional truth. So if your dog has soft eyes, meaning they're relaxed, blinky, squinty, think sleepy smile, this is a comfortable dog. If you see whale eye, so this is where we see the whites of the eye in a half moon shape, the head stays still while the eyes cut to the side. This says, I'm uncomfortable and tracking that thing. So they're watching something. If you see a hard stare, so that means they're fixed, unblinking, pupils dilated, this is tension and it often comes right before a reaction. Okay, let's talk about the mouth and face. I'm going to go through each part and then we're going to talk about it as a whole, but let's go to the mouth and face. So if your dog has a loose mouth, meaning it's slightly open, the tongue is lulling, it's relaxed, that's good. Uh if they have tight commissures, so the corners of their mouth pull back tightly, it looks like a grimace, that's stress. If your dog is lip-licking or yawning when they're not sleepy, so it's out of context, these are what we call displacement behaviors. They're trying to calm themselves down. So if your puppy didn't just eat and isn't sleepy, that yawn means I'm feeling uneasy. Okay, let's go to the ears and forehead. Neutral ears, they look like, now this is going to be breed dependent, but generally a resting position or relaxed. So you need to know for your particular dog's breed what that looks like. What do neutral ears look like for your dog? Now, if they pin their ears back, so pinned ears can mean fear or appeasement, and it can pair with other signals to help you know which. Now, if they have a furrowed brow, so wrinkles on their forehead, that is concern, or they're really concentrating on a perceived threat. Okay, let's talk about body posture and weight shifts. If your dog is loose and wiggly, I like to call it noodly. They're just like a big wet spaghetti noodle. There's curves in the body and there's weight shifting from side to side, that is a happy dog. If your dog is frozen, they are a statue. Everything stops, even for one second. We call this freezing. And this is a major red flag. It's the pause before fight or flight. So watch for the freezing or statue-like behavior. If your dog puts their weight back, so they're leaning away, they're trying to flee, right? Weight forward would mean a potential, I'm going towards that thing. But sometimes you'll see your dog leaning away or trying to get away. Now, when they're on a leash, this gets a little tricky. And sometimes we get some leash aggression because the dog doesn't feel like they can exit. Okay, let's talk about the tail because sometimes we think any dog that's wagging their tail is happy. That's not necessarily true. So a helicopter wag, this is so fun to see. It's full body involved, loose based. This is pure joy. Your dog is super happy. So think of it just going around and around and around. If your dog's tail is high and stiff and it's fast, a fast, tight, tip-ony kind of wag, that's arousal. That's not necessarily happiness. That's um, think adrenaline, right? Adrenaline's going through their body and it's just a high, fast wag. If your dog's tail is tucked, this means that they're feeling some fear, stress, maybe some appeasement. And if they're holding their tail straight out, they're just alert or assessing, possibly stressed. So again, as similar to the ears on your dog and your particular breed, you're going to have to recognize what your dog's tail means because some dogs have shorter tails than others. And it's harder to tell by that than it is like a big long tail like Baxter's. It's pretty easy to tell how he's feeling with his tail. You might have to, you know, learn other parts of the body language in connection with the tail in order to be able to get a good assessment on your particular dog. Okay, so here's a big rule I want you to remember. One signal does not tell the story. You have to look for clusters. So a whale eye plus a lip lick plus their weight is back means please give me some space, right? And that combination of the body language is what's going to tell us what your dog is saying. Okay, so there are whispers that I mentioned. And if you catch these, you can change the outcome before your puppy practices panic, right? So here's what we call a ladder of stress. We're going to start at the bottom and we're going to work our way up to the top. So uh number one would be yawning, lip licking, nose licking when they're not hungry or tired. So that's out of context, okay? So that's kind of their signal that they're they're feeling something and they're trying to handle it. They're trying to manage that um anxious feeling that they might have. The next one would be they turn their head away. They're averting their gaze. So do it's not uh super friendly for dogs to make head-on contact. So they might try to turn their head or try to avoid or get away from the conflict. Number three would be you might see them shake off. So if you've given your dog a bath and they shake off when they're wet, sometimes they shake off when they're dry. And that's their full body reset attempt. They're trying to let go, like shake it off. Just if you say shake it off, right, let it go. That's what they're trying to do. The next one would be scratching or sniffing the ground out of context. Again, these would be some more displacement behaviors. Sniffing is a way that dogs naturally relax themselves. So if um they're doing it excessively or something, they might be trying to calm themselves down. Panting when it's not hot and they haven't exercised. So a dog's pant is not necessarily something we worry about. That's how they get rid of, you know, their excess um body heat. But if it's again, they're haven't been running around and they're panting or they're, you know, dropping um spots of saliva because they're so nervous, you might notice extra panting. Okay, here's another one. Number six would be a paw lift while standing or sitting. So sometimes when I'm grooming Baxter, he'll give me his paw. He'll lift his paw up. And I know that that's him telling me, hey, you need to slow down, or I need a little break here. Um he does, he handles grooming really well, but he will give me this paw lift, which I've come to recognize is his stop button. If he lifts his paw, we just stop and pause. I give him some time to compose himself, and then I'll go back to brushing. So, and we might even take a little break if needed. Okay, let's go do something else. We'll come back to this in a minute. But I've recognized, and he he does that one pretty clearly for me. So you might notice your dog giving you a little paw lift, like kind of here, take my paw. And it's not necessarily that shake, that trick that we've taught them. It's I'm uncomfortable here, something's happening that I don't necessarily love. I'm gonna lift my paw to show you, hey, like I just I need a break from this. Again, that example of Baxter and grooming is probably the best one I have. Um, okay, the next one would be moving in slow motion or suddenly getting very still. So if you see your dog slow down and start to go into that freezing or statue-like behavior, we really need to pay attention at that point. Especially if the next one would be they are furrowing their brows, they're pinning their ears, their tail is low or tucked. If they start to creep or crawl or lower their body and they're trying to avoid something, those are really uh pretty big signals that, okay, my dog is really not comfortable. I need to help them or let them get away, move away. Um, and then the last one would be that stiffening, staring, growling, snapping, biting. Okay. So we've gone from you see your dog yawning, lip-licking, maybe nose licking, maybe turning their head away, doing a shake off, some scratching or sniffing to more like, okay, I'm furrowing my brows, my ears are pinned, my tail is um stiff or high and fast, or they're creeping and trying to crawl away, or they're doing like the I'm gonna approach you. So stiffening, staring, growling, snapping, biting. And uh most people call us at nine or 10, right? My dog uh snapped at somebody, my dog um was growling at someone. But our goal is to notice the one through four, right? Where they're um licking their lips or they're yawning or they're shaking off. Like we want to notice those things because that's the onset of when something's not feeling right to them. And that's where we still have a dog who's thinking, right? The puppy is still trying to process. They're trying to, okay, I feel this feeling, I'm trying to get rid of it, I'm gonna do that shake off, or I'm just gonna turn my head and try to like get away from it. Um, they're still trying to problem solve. Whereas when you get down to eight, nine, or 10, they're like, okay, I've had it. And they just, that's when they kind of lash out. So let's talk about some common scenarios where we might miss these things. So I'll talk about a situation, we'll talk about the miss signal, what the puppy is saying, and then what we can do instead. So, example number one would be a child approaches a dog to pet them. Okay. If our puppy is turning their head away or they're licking their lips, right, they're trying to say, I need some space. So what we can do instead is pause, maybe have your child sit down and let the puppy approach them. Maybe they can toss some food rewards away from them and then the puppy will come back to them to get another toss. Maybe you take your dog to puppy class and your puppy shakes off every 30 seconds. You just see them do this like whole body shake off. What your puppy's saying is this is a lock. Class is really chaotic. I'm trying to cope with it. So you might be like, you know what? My puppy needs a little break. I'm gonna step outside for a minute and we're going to do some sniffing in the grass, or we're gonna play a little nose game or something like that. So pay attention to those signs. Okay, the next situation would be let's say you were trying to put on our dog's harness and the puppy yawns or they move in slow motion or they try to kind of creep away. Um, they're telling you that they're worried about this. They don't necessarily love that harness going on. So we might instead try pairing the harness with food. Maybe we can break it into five simple steps, right? Like, I just want you to come over here and touch the harness with your nose, and then I'll let you walk away. And then I want you to come over and just walk past the harness, and we can, you know, give them a food reward and they can walk away. So we might need to break that down and help them see the harness as a good thing as we associate it with food. Okay, the last situation would be let's say you have a new visitor at your door and your puppy freezes for like two seconds, you see them become kind of a stiff statue. We do not want to force this greeting. Your puppy is saying, I'm not sure if this is safe. I'm not sure that I trust this person. So don't force that greeting. Don't let that person just come right up to the puppy. Instead, reward your puppy for looking away. Maybe you can even help them walk away or look away from the person, lure them away from the person. You can set up a baby gate that the puppy could be behind so they feel like there's this barrier between them and the person they're nervous about. And then you can talk to the person and watch for signs that your puppy is relaxing before then interacting with them. Okay, so what do you do when you see stress? I've given you a few scenarios and a few ideas, but here are just some overall steps. Okay. Number one is I want you to change the picture. Distance is going to be your friend. So if you see these signs, stress signals in your dog, I want you to add distance. Get five, 10 feet away from whatever your puppy is worried about. Turn and go the other way. Do a U-turn. Step behind a car, puts a barrier between you and whatever the dog is nervous about, right? You need to be the advocate for your dog. You need to recognize these signals and then help your dog feel better. Number two is offer an out. Like I said, especially when that dog's on a leash, they feel stuck. Um, so we need to turn or teach a U-turn cue. Teach find it to go find food on the ground. Or if you're training a service dog and you don't want to put that food on the ground, that's fine. You can offer um food rewards or just do like simple touch behaviors where they touch your hand and they get rewarded. All right, but do remember sniffing lowers heart rate. So let your dog, if they're feeling stressed on leash, go do a go sniff walk for five, 10 minutes. Let your dog just sniff and explore. That's nature's way of calming them down. Okay, number three would be keep a stress diary for a week. Just write down the time, the location, what happened, and what your puppy did. You'll start to see patterns and you might notice, oh, he's always lip-licking when the garbage truck comes. Maybe he's nervous about the garbage truck. And then you can set up sessions strategically and safely where you're at a distance from a garbage truck and help your puppy feel positive about it. Number four is really, really important. It's called flooding. We do not want to flood our dogs. So if your puppy is whispering stress, don't say, oh, they'll get used to it, they'll get over it. Here, puppy, come check this out. It's not that bad, I promise. That's how whispers become shouts. So rather we'd want brief, positive exposures with choice and food rewards because that's going to build confidence. If I'm forcing my dog exposure to something they are scared about, that builds fear. And we don't want that. Okay, thanks for being here today and listening, you guys. Uh, just some takeaways that you can remember this week would be looking for clusters, not single signs. So if your dog yawns, it's not like, oh, my dog is stressed, but look for the complete picture, look at their entire body and try to get a more accurate read. Now, the early stuff is subtle, right? It's quiet. So you need to notice the yawns and the lip licks and the head turns and the shakeoffs. Those are the whispers. Those are the early warning system. And then our job is to be our puppy's translator. When I see stress, I'm going to try to change something to help them feel better. I might add distance, I might add breaks or food rewards. Because a puppy who feels safe learns faster. That's it. Period. Stress blocks the thinking brain. But if I can help my dog feel safe, they're going to learn more quickly. Okay, you guys, thanks for listening. I'm so glad you tuned in today. We have an entire website and a complete curriculum to help you train your dog. If you need help with any of this, or you're seeing maybe those eight, nine, or ten behaviors where your dog's snapping or biting or lunging or you've you're really worried that your puppy is stressed, please reach out to us. We would love to help you. We have the capability to do it one-on-one via Zoom. We can see your puppy and coach you through this process. And we really want you to be successful in raising your dog. So don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Have a great week. Happy training. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a training tip. And if you're enjoying the show, leaving a quick review really helps other handlers find us. For more training resources, tips, and support, visit me, Amy Jensen at baxterambella.com. Until next time, happy training.