What Your Dog’s Tail Wags Mean

There's more that a dog is telling you with his tail wag than you realize.  It's not just excitement he or she is feeling.  In fact, where it wags, if it's up or down and how fast or slow it wags are all indicators of what your dog is feeling and what it wants to communicate to you.

A 2013 Italian study found what the tail wags of your dog indicate.  Taking in the factors of the speed of his or her tail and where it's positioned will tell you more accurately how your dog is feeling at any given time.

This study also shares that tail wagging isn't something instinctive in your dog and, in fact, is something your dog learns from other dogs.

Tail wagging is a way of communicating by your dog to share their emotional state and they purposefully wag their tail as a social interaction, as a way to communicate with you.

If you've gone along with your human instinct that a wag is just a show of happiness, then it's time to get a deeper understanding of what your dog is communicating to you just by learning about the actions of their tail.

Take a look at the gallery below to become more familiar with how dogs are communicating and what they are saying about their emotional state with just their tails.  They want to communicate and here's what they are trying to say to you.