New study suggests dogs wag their tails for us

A new study suggests that dogs wag their tails because we humans like its rhythm, along with it being a sign of a dog’s docility.

Dog owners are familiar with their pet’s tail wagging, most often believed to be a sign of happiness. But Silvia Leonetti and her team wanted to research this trait even more.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine, the study adds more to the general knowledge scientists have about tail wagging.

What was the study about?

Scientists led the study with two hypotheses: 1) the “domestication syndrome” hypothesis and 2) the “domesticated rhythmic wagging” hypothesis, as summarized by Smithsonian Magazine.

The domestication syndrome hypothesis theorized that tail wagging came to be during domestication and became a sign of docility, while the domesticated rhythmic wagging hypothesis theorized humans chose dogs with tail wagging traits during domestication.

According to The Guardian, Leonetti and her team looked into previous studies about tail wagging and found that hand-reared dog pups wag more than hand-reared wolf pups, possibly acting as evidence for their domestication theories.

But there is still a lot of unknown information. The study’s conclusion notes that more thorough investigations are needed if scientists want to make a direct correlation between tail wagging and humans.

In an interview with The Guardian, Dr. Holly Root-Gutteridge, an animal cognition researcher at the University of Lincoln, commented that “tail wagging was a social signal between individuals that dogs had adapted to use with humans because people found barking irritating.”

One suggestion the study has for future research is to create a more systematic method, such as analyzing videos or exposing the dogs to different stimuli, per the Smithsonian Magazine.

They also suggest using a variety of advanced and noninvasive tactics, according to The Guardian.

What does it mean when a dog wags its tail?

Scientists already know several meanings behind tail wagging. The Smithsonian Magazine explains that if a dog wags its tail more to the right, then it is curious, while if it wags more to the left, it is uncertain.

Root-Gutteridge commented to The Guardian, “I suspect ancestral humans saw tail wags as a positive, easy to read sign in wolves, and developed it the way we talk with our hands — as a communicative gesture that we can easily understand.”