Key points
- Over-simplification of gestural meanings in human-animal communication can be misleading.
- Misreading a dog’s behavior can have negative effects on their relationships with their own and other humans.
- Recognizing a dog’s emotional needs is, in itself, a pathway toward compassion, empathy, and respect.
How do dogs understand human gestures? Research cautions us that simple answers to questions like these can be misleading, For this and other reasons I was pleased to read a recent paper by anthrozoologist Sindhoor Pangel titled, “The open palm gesture in human–dog communication: An exploratory synthesis, Human–Animal Interactions.” In it, she stresses that perhaps we should move from asking, “Can the dog decode my gesture?” to “What happens to the dog when I make this gesture and how does this impact our relationship?”
The use of an open palm held toward a dog is not novel in our interaction with dogs and is usually understood as a directive: Stop, Wait,orStay.But her observation is that the same gesture also occurs in casual interactions in which the human does not appear to be asking the dog to do anything
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write your paper on the open palm gesture?
Sindhoor Pangal: I started noticing the gesture everywhere. In fact, this paper itself carries examples of traffic cops casually using it with street dogs, and the dogs seeming to respond to it as if this were a very natural way for a human and dog to interact
This fascinated me and I started talking about it with my students. They then began showing me videos of it being used, both with street dogs and with dogs in their homes. Closer examination of these videos revealed something interesting: The effect of this gesture did not seem to be directing them to do anything specific. Instead, I noticed subtle signs of emotional regulations or de-escalation. Then came pilot observations from France and Norway suggesting a possible reduction in pulse in response to the gesture. This got my attention.
So I started looking more closely at the gesture itself. It appears to be an ancient gesture, used extensively by humans across cultures. We use it so frequently that our tendency to use it spills over into casual interactions with animals, as seen in the traffic police examples. Given dogs’ remarkable ability to read human body language, it seemed reasonable to ask what repeated exposure to this gesture does to dogs. This paper was born out of that exploration
MB: How does this paper relate to your background and general areas of interest?
SP: My work straddles two areas: increasing harmony in the human-dog dyad, and the study of free-living dogs in India. The gesture is significant to both
The more I studied it, the more the gesture seemed to show potential in helping humans and dogs co-regulate emotions in certain situations. A gesture that helps a nervous dog calm down could prevent conflict in an accessible, inexpensive way that requires no training. That’s particularly significant when dealing with free-living animals such as street dogs
With street dogs, I noticed that the gesture was already in circulation among people who interact with them. This raised further questions about gestures in circulation in an informal, largely untrained human-dog environment
This segues into my anthrozoological work: the co-construction of communication by humans, animals, and society. We communicate reassurance through presence, posture, gaze, proximity, tone of voice, and gesture. Its affect relies on the recipient experiencing this multimodal configuration as reassuring, which in turn is culturally influenced. Communication, thus co-constructed by the recipient, the sender, and society, is where my work is situated
MB: Who do you hope to reach with this work?
SP: I would like to reach anyone interested in understanding human-dog communication beyond commands and directives. Instead of asking what our gestures mean to dogs, I want us to ask, “What happens to my dog when I use this gesture, in this manner, within this relationship?”
This is particularly significant with free-living dogs. When we approach a dog who has choices about whether to engage with us, communication can be much more about negotiation and social coordination than about obedience
MB: What are some of the topics you consider and what are some of your major messages?
SP: The main idea is to challenge how we study gestural use in human-animal communication. We typically isolate gestures and look for behavioural responses to them. But gestures are experienced as part of multimodal contextual communication including posture, gaze, movement, voice, proximity, timing, and emotional states. The history between participants also matters
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Gestures like the open palm are not fixed signals with fixed meaning. The open hand is a polysemous gesture whose meaning changes according to how it’s presented, who presents and receives it, and in what context. It’s a co-constructed signal that emerges as a communicative protocol between the actors in a situation. Hence, my paper is an invitation to explore human-dog communication beyond the conveying of human intent and to consider the complexity of communication, beyond directives
MB: How does your work differ from others concerned with some of the same general topics?
SP: I think the main difference is that I am deliberately cautious about assigning a simple and universal meaning to the gesture
It can be tempting to create a human-canine dictionary: This gesture means this, that posture means that. But communication is rarely that simple
The same gesture can occur in very different interactions and produce different responses. Its meaning may be dynamic. A soft gesture and facial expression offered to a nervous dog is not equivalent to an abrupt hand movement meant to act as a directive
Through my observations and this paper, I aim to problematise the oversimplification of gestures in human-dog communication and open the door to greater complexity, both in how gestures are used and in the meanings they carry
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about how dogs communicate, they will treat them with greater understanding, compassion, and respect?
SP: Absolutely. I believe that conflict, whether among humans or between species, can arise from breakdowns in communication. Restoring communicative channels is important
A human who can reassure with gestures is better equipped to show up for a nervous dog. A dog who feels supported during uncertainty is less likely to engage in defensive behaviour, and thus is perceived as calmer, making people less fearful and more open to understanding that dog
A human who wishes to reassure a dog is also likely to be paying attention to the dog’s emotions in situations where the dog needs support. Recognising a dog’s emotional needs is, in itself, a pathway toward compassion, empathy, and respect
In conversation with Sindhoor Pangal, a canine behaviour consultant and a canine myotherapist and anthrozoologist with a Master’s in Anthrozoology from the University of Exeter. She researches India’s free-living dogs in Bangalore and is a TEDx speaker, a peer-reviewed researcher, and the author of Dog Knows(HarperCollins India). She is the founder and principal of BHARCS, an academy teaching canine behaviour through ethology, biosociopsychology, and zoosemiotics
