Inside the Secret Life of Dogs

Dogs can’t speak English, but they still can tell you everything you need to know to make them happy, healthy and well behaved

By Deb Acord
CTW Features

Hunter is a one-year-old beagle with impressive communication skills. He has a high-pitched greeting for cats; a low growl and bark reserved for people he perceives as intruders; and a happy howl for playtime.

He’s not as gifted a talker as Gibson, the world’s largest Great Dane, who became famous for proclaiming, “I love you,” on command. But Hunter has figured out how to speak with the others in his world – humans, cats and other dogs.

According to Dr. Michael W. Fox, Hunter’s ability to communicate isn’t unusual. “The animal is aware of the appropriateness of the sounds in relation to specific context,” Fox writes in his new book, “Dog Body, Dog Mind: Exploring Your Dog’s Consciousness and Total Well-Being” (Lyons Press, 2007).

Fox, a noted veterinarian, author and animal behaviorist who lives in Golden Valley, Minn., has studied animal behavior for half a century. He has written more than four-dozen books, and writes a popular weekly syndicated column, “Animal Doctor.”

In his newest work, Fox offers his readers a chance to become more fluent in what he calls “dog-speak,” giving people a better grasp of what their dog is “feeling, intending, and wanting.” (Fox’s similar book on felines, “Cat Body, Cat Mind” also came out this year.) Once you learn to pick up on your own dog’s special way of communicating, you’ll have a deeper bond, a happier animal and a way to understand all the lessons dogs have to teach us, Fox believes.

Fox was born in England, attended the Royal Veterinary College in London, and got his PhD in medicine at the University of London. He lectures and writes frequently on animal health, rights and welfare, environmental health and bioethics. But a topic to which he returns again and again is the world, intelligence and well being of canines.

“Dogs were always in my life,” he says. “When I was very young, I learned the significance of the intelligent, responsive beings that were dogs. They were my friends, my playmates.”

While Fox studied dogs and their wild canine relatives – foxes, wolves, coyotes and jackals - he found he was also learning about the human race. “I’ve come to understand what it means to be wild and how we have changed dogs in the process of domestication,” he says. “Looking at that gave me more insight into my own species. I like the emerging idea that dogs and wolves really helped us become human. Before, we were aggressive, carnivorous, killer apes.”

So we are better people because of dogs. Are dogs better because of us? “Dogs are mirroring our health and our diseases in so many ways,” good and bad, Fox says. “Obesity, cancer, even separation anxiety. Because of that, we are moving toward one medicine because we have similar emotional and physical problems. That’s an exciting movement.”

Fox believes “we have to ask ourselves ‘what are our real responsibilities for our fellow creatures on the planet?’ Our responsibility is not to consume them, not to enslave them.”

Getting to know your dog is the first step toward a respectful, equal relationship, Fox says. How does respect affect obedience training? Fox says it’s the first step to having a well-behaved dog.

“If you understand your dog, and can communicate your intentions, you are really going to motivate that socially empathetic creature to behave well, because he will want to respect your wishes.”

That doesn’t mean that a well-understood dog is always a perfect dog. Fox writes that dogs are capable of insight, foresight and reasoning – all human traits that can help them solve problems and understand routine.

“My best teachers have been dogs themselves,” he writes in “Dog Body, Dog Mind.” Observing how dogs react is the best way to understand how they think. The dog who watches its owner move a stool so it can’t reach food on the counter, then later finds a way to move the stool back and reach the treats; the dog that prepares for its owners’ arrival from work 10 minutes before they pull into the driveway every night; the dog who makes a mess, then hides it under a blanket so it won’t get caught; all are examples of how a dog thinks, Fox writes.

The book offers a wealth of information and advice, from explanations of various kinds of dog behavior to training methods to nutrition and holistic care.

Key to establishing the most meaningful and instructive bond, he writes, is assessing the dog’s “freedoms” and ensuring that each is met.

“The first thing to do to determine if your animal is happy is to check how you are treating your animal companion against the so-called Five Freedoms, which include both physical and mental health considerations:”

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst

2. Freedom from pain, injury and disease

3. Freedom from discomfort

4. Freedom to express normal behavior

5. Freedom from fear and distress

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