Most people might assume dogs wagging their tail means excitement, or they’re happy to see their owner, but researchers are giving a different reason.
Experts are saying your dog wagging their tail could be because humans love the rhythm of the movement, or simply as a result of dolcility through domestication.
Four scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands and the University of Rome looked at previous research studies on the reason behind dogs wagging their tail, publishing their findings in the Royal Society's Biology Letters today (Tuesday, January 17).
Their studies led them to find that dogs do it more often than other species they’re closely related to.
Dr Taylor Hersh, a co-author of the article, told The Guardian: “We may not be able to take a time machine back to the beginning of the dog-human relationship, but we can look at dog behaviour today in tandem with human behaviour to try and understand what that domestication process looked like.
“Tail wagging is a very apparent and interesting behaviour to start with.”
So why do dogs wag their tails and what does it mean?
Tail wagging is used to typically convey what kind of emotions the dog is presenting, according to the Healthy Pet Club. It does not always mean the dog is necessarily happy, but could mean they're nervous or showing signs of submission.
But could there be another reason?
The team reached two hypothesises, which both suggest that dogs wag their tail as a by-product of human domestication over the years.
One of the reasons, which they call the “domesticated rhythmically wagging” hypothesis, shows that humans unconsciously selected dogs who wagged their tails more often.
The paper stated: "Cognitive neuroscience shows that human brains prefer rhythmic stimuli, which trigger pleasurable responses and engage brain networks that are part of the reward system.”
The authors of the paper did not go into detail on how this behaviour developed in humans but wrote that humans prefer “rhythmic stimuli which trigger pleasurable responses and engage brain networks that are part of the reward system".
Silvia Leonetti, first author of the article, told The Guardian: “We put forth a new hypothesis that humans consciously or unconsciously selected for tail wagging during the domestication process because we are very attracted to rhythmic stimuli."
The paper goes on to state that tail wagging is also used a sign of appeasement and submission in dog-human interactions
They believe that it also indicates positive emotions, high arousal, but never fear or stress.
