Inside of a Dog_ What Dogs See, Smell, and Know - Alexandra Horowitz [81]
In my study of dog play I shadowed dogs around with a video camera rolling, and controlled my own delighted laughter at their fun long enough to record bouts of play, from a few seconds to many minutes long. After a few hours of this the fun stopped, the dogs would get packed into the backs of cars, and I would walk home, reflecting on the day. I'd sit down in front of my computer and play back the videos, at an extremely slow rate: slowed enough to see each frame—thirty of which fill a second—individually. Only at this speed could I really see what had happened in front of me. What I saw was not a repeat of the scene I'd witnessed at the park. At this speed I could see the mutual nods that preceded a chase. I saw the head-jockeying, open-mouth volleys that blurred into unrecognizability in real time. I could count how many bites it takes, over the course of two seconds, before a bitten dog responds; I could count how many seconds it takes for a paused bout to resume.
And, most important, I could look to see what behaviors dogs do, and when. Watching the play deconstructed into these subsecond moments enabled me to record a long catalog of the behaviors of each dog: a transcript of the play. I also noted their postures, their proximity to one another, and which way they were looking at every moment. Then, so deconstructed, the play could be reconstructed to see what behaviors match what postures.
In particular, I was interested in two kinds of behaviors: play signals and attention-getters. Attention-getters, as we've seen, are obvious things: they serve to get attention. Specifically, they are acts that alter the sensory experience of someone else—someone whose attention you're keen to have on you. They can be an interruption of the visual field, as when Pump suddenly puts her head between me and the book I'm holding. They can interrupt the auditory environment: a car's honk is so intended, and dogs' barks are so as well. If these methods fail, attention can be gotten by interacting physically: a hand on the shoulder; a paw on the lap; or, between dogs, a bump with the hip or a light bite on the rump. Clearly, many things we do are in some way attention-getting, but not every behavior is equally good at the task.
Calling your name out may be a way to catch your attention—but not if we are in Yankee Stadium in the bottom of the ninth. Then a more extreme method (and possibly an organist) would be necessary. Similarly, dogs' attention can be more or less easy to get. Between dogs, what I called an in-your-face—presenting oneself in front of, and very close to the face of, another dog—is effective at getting attention—but not if the dog is engaged in rollicking play with someone else. Then more forceful means are needed—thus explaining those dogs who circle a playing pair for minutes barking barking barking. (Better, perhaps, to interject some nice rump bites in there with the barking, if you are truly eager to break up the game.)
Play signals, the other behaviors, are requests for play or announcements of interest in playing: they could be translated as saying something like Let's play or I want to play or even Ready? because I'm about to play with you. What the specific words are is not as important as their functional effect: play signals are reliably used to begin and to continue play with others. They are a social requirement, not just a social nicety. Dogs typically play together rambunctiously and at a breakneck pace. Since they are doing all manner of actions that could easily be misinterpreted—biting each other on the face, mounting from behind or fore, tackling the legs out from under another dog—the playfulness of their actions has to be manifest.* If you fail to signal before biting, jumping on, hip-slamming, and standing