Why does your dog wag his tail?
Almost all of us would say that when a dog wags his tail he or she is happy. But a team of Italian researchers, recently refuted this age-old belief. According to the researchers, when a dog wags his tail not always is he happy. If the dog is happy he wags his tail to the right but if he is scared then he wags his tail to the left. These new findings in dog behaviour have been published by the researchers in a recent issue of Current Biology.
According to researchers, Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trieste and Angelo Quaranta and Marcello Siniscalchi of Bari University, the "striking asymmetries in the control of tail movements" reinforce the notion of how the right and left halves of the brain monitor different emotions.
Tests were conducted on 15 female and 15 male pet dogs falling in the age range 1-6 years. Each of the pets was kept in a large rectangular wooden box and the box was covered with black plastic so that the dog could not see outside. Each dog was subjected to four tests: (1) reaction of the dog on seeing the owner; (2) reaction on seeing a stranger; (3) reaction on seeing an unfamiliar and aggressive dog housed in a cage; and (4) reaction on seeing a cat housed in a cage.
According to the researchers:
When faced with their owner, dogs exhibited a striking right-sided bias in the amplitudes of tail wagging.
For tests (2) and (4) the direction of wagging was to the right but the wagging was nowhere as intense as noticed during test (1) and the wagging was least intense on seeing the cat.
For test (3), the dogs' tails wagged prominently to the left.
The researchers also added that when alone and not subject to any test, the dogs wagged their tails to the left suggesting that they wanted company.
Lesley Rogers, a neuroscientist with the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, had this to say:
This work shows that even a single medial appendage can show lateralization and so reflect which side of the brain is active at the time. Also, it provides an excellent way of assessing the reactions of dogs to people, other animals and even different environments.
But the researchers went on to add that the study was more of theoretical interest because wagging of tails in dogs is usually from left to the right and vice versa and left-right bias if any can be noticed prominently only under video analysis.
Vallortigara added:
Our study provides direct evidence that also in a non-human species the anterior regions of the left and right hemispheres are specialized for approach and withdrawal processes.
A WAGGING DISCOVERY INDEED!!
Via: Discovery News
