Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

by Alexandra Horowitz

Dogs, like so many non-human animals, have evolved innumerable, non-language-driven methods to communicate with one another. Human facility at communication is unquestionable. We converse with an elaborate, symbol-driven language, quite unlike anything seen in other animals. But we sometimes forget that even non-language-using creatures might be talking up a storm. What animals have are whole systems of behavior that get information from a sender (speaker) to a recipient (listener). That is all that is needed to call something a communication. It needn’t be important, relevant, or even interesting information, but between animals it often is. Communication is only sometimes within our range of hearing, or even vocal: it is often made through body language—using limbs, head, eyes, tails, or the entire body—or even through such surprising forms as changing color, urinating and defecating, or making oneself larger or smaller.