Understanding Your Dog’s Emotions

This article is a guest contribution by Katja Krauß – one of the leading experts in canine emotions, communication, and body language.

Katja is a certified canine expert, a Tellington TTouch instructor for dogs and small animals, a clicker trainer, book author, and presenter for dog-ibox. She also leads the training program for animal-assisted interventions and is the author of the online course Loving Animals. In addition, she teaches and runs the ttouch-n-click program and works as a scent-detection dog trainer (mold detection dogs).

If you’d like to dive even deeper into understanding your dog’s emotional world, we recommend the book Dogs in Translation (German title: Emotionen bei Hunden sehen lernen) by Katja Krauß and Gabi Maue.

Thank you, dear Katja, for this valuable contribution to such an important topic.

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Only when I understand what is going on inside my dog can I respond appropriately to his actions. Just five minutes a day can help you sharpen your observation skills and get to know your dog better. The challenge is learning to observe neutrally—without interpreting, labeling, or judging the situation. It’s best to practice with photos rather than videos, as you will otherwise miss many subtle details.

What You'll Need: a smartphone or camera, a pen, and a notebook

How it Works: 

1. Take many photos of your dog in different everyday situations: when he’s happy to see a person, greeting another dog, sleeping, eating, feeling uncertain, and so on.

2. Each day, choose one photo and describe what you see for five minutes. Write your observations in your notebook. Use the checklist below to guide you. Describe everything as precisely as possible — and if you can’t see something clearly in the image, simply leave it out.

Checklist:

1. Head – Neck Position

2. Head – Head Position

3. Head – Ear Position (including relation to each other)

4. Head – Wrinkles/Folds

5. Head – Eye Shape and Distance

6. Head – Eyebrows (and spacing)

7. Head – Pupil Size

8. Head – Whisker Orientation

9. Head – Coat

10. Body – Topline (Backline)

11. Body – Joint Angles

12. Body – Center of Gravity

13. Body – Tail Position

14. Body – Coat

If you notice additional details, write those down as well.

Use Katja’s video to further train your observation skills.

Tip:

The key is learning to observe neutrally, without judgment. Don’t interpret the behavior — simply describe exactly what you see. Later, you can also describe a sequence of photos from the same situation. From the second photo onward, note only the changes compared to the previous image.

Below is an example from Katja, describing her Golden Retriever Rani.

Rani is walking along the beach with her head lowered — she’s also the cover dog of our book. 😊

1.   Head – Neck Position

Her neck is carried low.

2. Head – Head Position

Her head is slightly lowered.

3. Head – Ear Position

Only a small part of the left ear is visible. The right ear is slightly raised and minimally turned forward.

4. Head – Wrinkles/Folds

The midline from the back of the head to the bridge of the nose is clearly visible. There is also a linear bulge under the right eye and a small circular bulge in the upper cheek area.

5. Head – Shape of the Eyes and Distance

Only the right eye is visible from this angle. Because her head is close to the ground, more of the lower part of the eye is visible than the upper. Her eyelashes point downward. The eye appears almond-shaped, and some sclera is visible along the lower edge.

6. Head – Eyebrows

The eyebrow is slightly raised and drawn inward toward the other eyebrow.

7. Head – Pupil Size

The pupil size is not visible.

8. Head – Whisker Orientation

The vibrissae on the upper muzzle stand out and partially point downward.

9. Head – Coat

On the lower bridge of the nose, just above the nose leather, the pink skin shows through the short hair. The cheek fur appears evenly short and lighter than the fur on the forehead. On the forehead, the coat is slightly longer and angles sideways up to the ear base before changing direction toward the neck.

10. Body – Topline

The front portion of her back appears slightly arched.

11. Body – Joint Angles

She appears to be walking at a slow pace. Three paws are on the ground; the right hind paw touches the ground with the upper surface of the middle claws. Her joints are loosely flexed.

12. Body – Center of Gravity

Due to the low head carriage, her weight is shifted slightly forward.

13. Body – Tail Position

The tail extends straight out behind her, slightly below back level. Longer coat is visible only on the first two thirds of the tail — either because the last third naturally has shorter fur, or because of tail movement in that moment.

14. Body – Coat

Her coat is medium-length and varies in color from light cream to deep gold. From the shoulders to the tail, the coat gradually becomes darker. It falls in loose waves and hangs down on the legs, tail, and along the lower body (chest to abdomen).

If I were to interpret this photo after describing it, I would say that Rani is walking along the beach in a calm yet attentive manner. The visible sclera suggests she is more focused on something ahead of her than on the scents at ground level. She may also be using this posture to communicate with another individual in front of her.

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