Critter Geek

Here’s a really fun article about a scientific study about dog tail wagging: If You Want to Know if Spot Loves You So, It’s in His Tail.

But there is another, newly discovered, feature of dog body language that may surprise attentive pet owners and experts in canine behavior. When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.

The article goes on to describe the experiments in some detail, and the theories that are being developed about brain asymmetry in animals, and how it might have developed as an evolutionary advantage:

Because the left brain controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side of the body, such asymmetries are usually manifest in opposite sides of the body. Thus many birds seek food with their right eye (left brain/nourishment) and watch for predators with their left eye (right brain/danger).

Thanks Steve!