Dogs are neither reckless animals nor are they interested in dominating their social partners according to social hierarchy, whether they are humans or their own kind. The long-held belief that dogs have an inner desire to dominate and to gain an advantage in competition with their social partners - human or human - for food, status, and other resources is absurd and false. Dogs neither actively, purposefully, or prospectively advance their family status nor are they capable of earning a place for themselves in the hierarchical battle. They simply react to the status quo, based on lessons learned in social interactions.

What is being social?

Social behavior in dogs includes all the behaviors that help them communicate and live together with their own kind, or with their primary social partner, humans. Dogs are highly social animals, and in order to survive they must live with humans and their own kind. They are also willing to bond with trusted people and their own kind, thus avoiding social isolation.

The most important characteristic of social animals is the ability to communicate. Dogs' behavior is adapted to the behavior of their social partners - people or their own kind - and they are able to adapt to life inside and outside their own families, all of which is basically predicated on the ability to read and send communication signals. Dogs learn to know the consequences of their behavior from the responses of their communication partners during social interactions. They learn to receive the correct information quickly from each other.

Of course dogs also learn how to influence the person they are communicating with, or manipulate, in different scenarios. The important thing is that they are able to communicate, understand and communicate both with their own kind and with people. For this reason dogs use different forms of intercourse. In order to live better in a group, dogs must learn to show weakness and to plead for peace, they must be able to read covert and overt aggression, and they must learn to initiate aggression in order to avoid accidents.

How does "dog language" communicate?

Dogs communicate with their social partners - people or other dogs - in different ways. They prefer to communicate in the form of a conversation. When the sender and receiver of a message communicate in the same way, they are able to communicate without barriers. Dogs simultaneously process signals gathered by hearing, seeing, smelling and touching, and often send out many signals to their companions at the same time. The advantage of this integrated communication is that it is not only possible to receive and send individual signals, but it also helps dogs to understand each other more accurately through different combinations of information. While we humans use more verbal or written expressions, dogs trust the messages conveyed by gestures, facial expressions and body language. They also use their noses and ears to exchange olfactory and visual information and adapt to speech and intonation that is extremely exaggerated for them.

Nonsense - Dog Whispering: Dogs practice "dog whispering" with other dogs at an early age and will get better at it if their owners allow them to continue practicing as adults. Many dog owners are painfully aware of how different dog language is from our own! How can we understand this creature when it is already so difficult to understand human to human. In addition, we want our dogs to fit into our lives as well. Therefore, we also want dogs to understand our human language - vocally and visually - without us having to repeat every word over and over again.

We humans have to learn "dog language"! Those of us who can communicate with our dogs using typical gestures, voice, tone and body language typical of dog language will soon have the attention of our dogs.