dog smile questions

It took years just to figure out why dogs spin around before taking a shit, so good luck figuring this one out.

>>2244317
Dog display emotion by body language not their mouth.

Dogs have no clue what you smiling even means.

>>2244345
So your face isn't part of your body, Anon?

>>2244334
due to conservation of angular momentum, my dog keeps spinning even as he squats down to squeeze out a steamy bad-boy

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"Smiling" is a common trait for Dalmatians. The two I've owned, plus all the rescues have all done it.
My current one does it everytime she greets me at the door, she does it whenever she meets other people, and I can usually get her to do it on command.
I am positive that when she does it to strangers she is showing off, among other things she does to get attention.
It's hard to get a good pic of her doing it because she is never holding still whenever she does it.

>>2244345
Perhaps not, there's a few studies that conclude that dogs have been domesticated to the point of understanding both human body language and facial expression, the strongest link being the difference between expressions of anger and happiness.

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/news/2016/01/1185.asp

“Previous studies have indicated that dogs can differentiate between human emotions from cues such as facial expressions, but this is not the same as emotional recognition.

“Our study shows that dogs have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information into a coherent perception of emotion in both humans and dogs. To do so requires a system of internal categorisation of emotional states. This cognitive ability has until now only been evidenced in primates and the capacity to do this across species only seen in humans.”

>>2244427
Anon a monkey thinks you smiling means you want to fight.

>>2244317
When I was a kid we had a black lab mix of some kind that always smiled at us when we came home. It was more of a series of smiles, actually, because every time he tried to smile he couldn't last longer than a second without sneezing. Rinse and repeat about six to eight times back to back when we got home. I'm fairly certain he meant to emulate human smiling.

Looks like a flehmen response, a lot of animals do that. If you've ever seen pics of tapirs making a horrible face with their nose in the air it's the same thing. Do dogs have a jacobson's organ?

It's a learned response, though some breeds are more likely to do it than others. See >>2244388
They do it a few times and the people around them react strongly. They laugh or smile or lavish attention on the dog for making a funny face. The dog then learns funny face=attention

My little dog 'smiles' when I get home from work sometimes. She does it more because I encourage it. It looks silly.

>>2244441
Because their facial expression mean different things. They still do use expressions to communicate.

My golden retriever would smile when happy.
I am fully aware it is not a natural expression for a dog, or at least it doesn't mean the same thing in dog language.
But he learned that smiling made his family happy, and he craved nothing more in life than to make us happy.
So it was a positive feedback loop, and he would smile if something made him happy even if he wasn't aware he was being watched.
I miss that dog.

>>2244441
So? Have monkeys been domesticated for tens of thousands of years? I fail to see how a comparison can be drawn between the two.

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>>2244388
I had a smiling dalmatian too. She showed the smile usually when family members got home from school/work, or when people fussed over her to get her all excited/playful. I used to think she was just a weirdo, but later learned the smile's a pretty common breed trait.

I've heard of dogs that show a smile when they've done something naughty and they're trying to appease an upset owner. Like for example if they've eaten food off the table, or chewed on something they're not allowed to chew. My dog never did this kind of smile, but there are a bunch of youtube videos showcasing a lot of other dogs doing it.

Along with the excited smile where my dog showed her front teeth, she also had a more content kind of smile that she used when she was calm, relaxed, and receiving attention from people. Her lips quirked upwards like pic related; teeth were not visible. I'm not totally sure if that face was actually supposed to be a smile though, or if I was just anthropomorphising things.

>>2244713
Golden Retrievers are the embodiment of loyalty and wanting to make others happy.

Except my aunt's. She just wants me to scratch her belly.

>>2244317
That dog is about to sneeze.

>>2244441
I kind of want to go to Africa and smile at some monkeys and get into some fights.

>>2244793
I'm sure there are monkeys closer to you, Anon.

>>2244794
Nah son. I want them real wild jungle monkeys. Not no zoo bitch monkeys.

My dog smiles when I blow my loads on to the floor.