Dogs could be speaking a secret language without humans realising it, experts say

Dogs might be trying to communicate with us through their blinks, experts in the field say.

Plenty of animals are much more clever than we give them credit for, with dogs able to count the number of treats given to them and one parrot breaking the Guinness World Record for identifying a huge number of items.

Now, evolutionary biologists at the University of Parma in Italy have revealed that domestic dogs’ blinking is actually a form of communication and plays a big role in their social behaviour.

The discovery was made after a team of researchers observed 47 dogs, 26 females and 21 males, as they watched videos of other dogs performing actions such as licking their nose, staring attentively and blinking.

It became apparent that the dogs started to blink more when they watched videos of other dogs blinking, mimicking what they were seeing on the screen.

The experts theorised that their blinking in response to another dog doing it could be a subtle way of displaying that they were nonaggressive.

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According to the study authors: “In dogs, blinking has been considered as an appeasement behaviour used to express non-aggressive intentions towards conspecifics, consequently its synchronization within a group could be a sign of a mutual communication or understandings.

“Reciprocal blinking in dogs might help to facilitate conspecific social bonds, cope with frustration and communicate non-aggressive intentions.”

They also note that another study found “reciprocal blink synchronization occurred” between humans and their pets.

While more research is needed to understand if this means they were trying to communicate with humans, no doubt there are plenty of pet owners who’d like to believe they are.

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