Dogs don't like being hugged!

[DanaC]

Yeah - but -

The great thing about dogs is that they have evolved alongside humans across thousands of years. This means that they are highly adept at 'reading' humans. They know when a human is showing affection, even if their human shows affection in a way that is different to how another dog would show affection. In my experience, dogs are great at taking the intended message.

I know that my dog, Carrot isn't fond of being hugged - he lets me know this. He'll let me give him a quick hug, but nothing more. But my previous dog, Pilau liked being hugged. He let me know this. Because when I cuddled him he'd talk and lick my ear - and if i stopped hugging him, he'd lean into me and not stop til I hugged him again.

It baffles me when researchers refer to 'dogs' doing a particular thing, or liking or disliking a particular thing, because in my experience, they are as individual in their likes and dislikes as humans are. They are also limited in how they can express themselves, so sometimes forms of expression that might mean one thing when used with another dog, get co-opted to mean something entirely different when communicating with humans.

It's a little like the idea that dogs are being 'submissive' when they roll onto their backs and show their belly. That idea came from the study of wolves, and was attached to dogs. But it turns out that, not only are many dog behaviours not analagous to wolves, but that even in terms of wolves they had been entirely misread. Much as the notion of 'alpha males' and 'alpha females' was a total misread of wolf solcial relationships. basically: much of what is common knowledge about wolves and wolf packs was derived from observing the behaviours of wolves in captivity - often an unrelated bunch of wolves thrust together in a confined area. The ways in which those captive wolves behaved suggested a hierarchical pack setup - with a dominant male and a dominant female. Within that setup, subordinate wolves wold show their subordination by rolling on their backs and showing their bellies, so this was seen as a submissive behaviour.

In the context of captivity, with unrelated wolves, or partial packs thrus together, that's exactly what it was - but that was actually a case of tose wolves using the behaviours and communication tools avilable to them to cope with and navigate an unnatural situation. In the wild, the 'dominant, alpha' male and female, are actually just mum and dad. They are not hierarchical in that sense - theirs is a family hierarchy, with matriarchs and patriarchs, and the younger wolves aren't showing submisson by rolling on their backs but trust and affection. It's a cub behaviour with their elders. At times, the older wolves will do the same thing with the younger wolves.

So - captive wolves, used a natural behaviour which means something completely different in the wild to signify to potentially aggressive unrelated wolves that they were not a threat. They co-opted the only communication tools they had to mean something completely different in the new situation.

Dogs may use rolling onto their backs to signify they are not a threat, as a sign of submission, but theymay also use it to show trust and affection.