What Is Your Dog Trying to Tell You With These Gestures?

For many years, we humans have worked hard to learn how to train dogs, so they obey our commands and adapt to living alongside other people and animals. But dogs have also learned to communicate with humans, developing gestures and movements they use to try to convey a message to us.

Not everyone with a dog knows these gestures, and as a result, they can't quite understand what their dog is trying to express when it makes them. Let's look in detail at the main gestures dogs use to try to express themselves to humans.

You might also like: 10 Signs That Show Your Dog Loves You

Dog Gestures to Ask for Food

Due to dogs' strong food instinct, it's no surprise that many of the gestures they've learned to communicate with humans are related to it. So, dogs have developed several gestures solely aimed at letting us know they want to eat, whether their own portion or whatever we're eating at that exact moment. Let's look at them in detail:

• It sits and raises a paw to get our attention, or even taps us with it.
• It turns its head between you and the food it wants, as if pointing out the food, telling us that's what it wants us to give it.
• It moves its head forward and up to get our attention, and may even nudge us with its snout.
• It stands up on its hind legs, next to us to get our attention, or next to the food it wants us to give it.
• It grabs its toy and throws it on the floor to make noise and get our attention.
• It sits next to us while we eat and stares at us and/or lets out a little whine, asking us for a piece of our food.

You've surely seen your dog make one of these gestures to ask for food more than once, and there are probably some you didn't know about but now, having read them, seem very familiar. That's because they've developed multiple ways to ask us for the same thing: food.

Gestures Dogs Use to Ask for Pets or Scratches

We know dogs are family-oriented, love being with humans, and feel sad when alone. Similarly, most dogs love being petted and being scratched when something itches. Especially in areas hard for them to reach on their own — that's where we'll most often see these gestures asking us for a good scratch.

Let's look at what dogs do to signal they want affection, pets, a bit of love. And also what they do to tell us something itches and they want us to scratch it, which they also love.

• It rubs its head on your leg or some object or piece of furniture at home, to indicate its snout or head itches. Obviously trying to relieve the itch or asking for a little scratch.
• It presses its nose against your body or gives you little nibbles to get your attention and have you give it some pets or a little scratch.
• It rolls around on the floor from side to side, to relieve an itch on its back or flank and let us know it'd appreciate a little scratch.
• It slowly drags itself along the floor to relieve an itch on its belly and tell us it wants us to scratch that area.
• It puts a paw on us, to signal it's time we give it some love and pets.
• It licks part of its body repeatedly, either to clean itself or because it feels an itch and would like us to scratch that area.

We won't even ask, since we're sure all these gestures are very familiar to you — even though no one ever taught them, dogs learn to make these gestures purely by instinct to communicate with us humans.

Gestures to Ask for Their Favorite Toy or Playtime

Besides eating and sleeping, what dogs love most is playing with their human and enjoying a good playtime. Sometimes we don't have time to play, but they'll still demand our attention so we give them their favorite toy, to spend a good while chewing on it. That said, we should remember there are dangerous toys for dogs, and not all of them are suitable, like rope toys, for example, since they could tear them apart, swallow the pieces, and accidentally choke.

Let's look at the most common gestures in dogs to ask us for a toy or get our attention so we play with them.

• Raising a paw and touching us with it to get our attention, sometimes looking at the spot where the toy it wants us to give or throw is, so it can run after it.
• It gets under you and starts moving its body to get your attention and ask for playtime.
• It sticks its head under an object to move it or get our attention, asking for that object and/or for us to dedicate some playtime to it.
• It comes running toward us with its favorite toy in its mouth, asking us to play tug-of-war and throw it so it can go fetch it again and again.
• It sits next to us and nudges us with its snout, to signal we should stop what we're doing and dedicate time to it, playing, for example.

It's very cute to see how playful dogs are from puppyhood, and even in old age, though less frequently at that stage, they're always grateful for some playtime. There's nothing more fun for them than playing, whether with us or with other dogs.

Dog Gestures Asking Us to Open a Door

Whether it's the front door to head out to the yard and play for a bit, the bedroom door to go to another room in the house, or the balcony/terrace door to go spy on the neighbors a little or simply sunbathe, dogs have learned certain gestures to tell us they want us to open the door.

• Resting its front paws on the door or on us, while looking at the door.
• Standing by the door and turning its head to look at us, indicating it wants us to open it.
• Jumping up near the doorknob trying to open it, a gesture obviously telling us it wants to go out.
• Sitting by the door and barking a little to get our attention so we open it.

We hope all these everyday gestures dogs make have helped you understand them a bit better when they do them. Now you'll know exactly what they're trying to tell you whenever they make one of them.