In our continuing efforts to notice dog language based on what we learned from Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide by Brenda Aloff, I shot these two photos of the dogs sitting inside one of our sliding doors in the sun. Both looked at me, then looked away in unison. I love these pics of my golden-eyed pair, sharing a dog bed in the sun.
They probably are squinting more from the sun than as a calming signal, but it’s a definitive face placement. The head turn could be in response to me and the camera being so close, but I swear they moved like a flock of birds, in perfect harmony and timing.
Notice Ginko’s neutral/happy flying-nun ears. That’s what we see most often from him. Lilly’s ears don’t bend like that. She has many ear positions, though:
- tucked back, which can mean super relaxed or really worried (depending on the situation)
- mid-mast (like above), which is relaxed
- mid-mast, but tipping forward or back, which means she’s worried
- full-mast, which means she’s alerted to something or is getting ready to be bossy
Our first two dogs were littermates (yes, dumb, I know – but we were clueless). I’ve never seen so much mirrored behavior as between those two. They always lay together and seemed to lie identically.
They also seemed to be able to communicate telepathically. In retrospect, I’m sure that they were communicating with body language that we didn’t understand.
The bond between those two dogs was the strongest that I’ve ever seen.