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Grasping Life by the Tail

There are so many things we take for granted: the excited laughter of children playing, the smile of a friend when we greet them, the rustle of leaves in the woods before a storm… Nothing momentous, perhaps, but welcome messages nonetheless. Each helps us to feel enveloped in the world around us, recipients of signals whether or not they were intended for us, or no one in particular. Not all of them require investigation, of course -unless idle curiosity prompts an equally idle examination.

But in retirement, idlehood -or should I say boredom- demands the filling in of time between meals, a search for meaning before the next nap. And so, as these things often develop, began my quest to understand meaning. Not the meaning of meaning, you understand: when you get old and crotchety, definitions imprison more than explain. No, more the explanation of why things happen as they do. Why can I not run as fast now as I did when I was in university? Why could I never get a date in high school? Things like that come to mind when, as is more frequently occurring, I have nothing else to do.

One such mystery surfaced the other day as I was wandering through the woods on a well-trodden path hoping to run across someone on the trail with a dog to pat. I live for such things nowadays -or at least avail myself of any opportunity of being acknowledged. A dog is usually like that; its body language is like a billboard on a highway: the message is easy to read even if you don’t intend to. Even if you pretend to ignore it, a nose usually finds itself on your leg, and unless your smell seems suspicious, a tail usually starts to wag, the body wriggle, and the invitation is delivered.

I have never been able to resist a wagging tail, and I’m afraid that Age has done nothing to blunt my response. I can’t help myself, even when the owner apologizes for her dog uncontrollably painting me with glossal mucous. In fact, I sometimes find myself issuing an apology for delaying their walk, or for inducing the dog to strain at its leash.

But I can feel a communion with the dog; although I haven’t worshipped in a church for years, it’s almost a religious thing, a transcendent agape (if I dare to venture into sacred vocabulary). It starts, I suppose with the eye contact, but it is encouraged in large part by the tail, and that got me wondering about wagging. Does the movement of a dog’s tail really mean anything, or is it merely a byproduct of the movement of the rest of the body, just a sign of general excitement? Is it, in other words, a signal?

A few weeks ago, after an unusually busy tail-day in the woods, I decided to postpone my usual nap when I got home and see if I could find any articles online that addressed the question. Apparently, it had not gone unasked; I felt validated somehow: my curiosity was probably not an incipient neurotangling sign, and I breathed easier.

The article I found was a rather long one, though – well beyond my concentration parameters- so I had to break it into little internappy segments, some of which I forgot after the interval. I feel I have retained a bit of it, however; I feel I have mastered the core, but like an apple, it has many seeds which may require a longer time than I likely have left to come to fruition…

I don’t feel like explaining the wagging mechanism – mainly because I don’t really understand it- but I was able to pick out some things that intrigued me. For example, dogs have a brain-lateralization like us: ‘Dogs exhibit a right-side wagging bias, determined by left hemisphere activation, for stimuli that have a positive emotional valence (e.g. when shown their owner or a familiar person)[i]. On the contrary, they show left-biased wagging, hence right hemisphere activation, for stimuli that elicit withdrawal (e.g. when shown an unfamiliar, dominant dog or when in aggressive situations).’ Just like pregnant moms, they sometimes even bathe themselves in oxytocin when they wag the good side.

Nobody seems willing to commit themselves to the ontogenesis, though; of course, that’s never been one of my strong suits either. Anyway, some of the information provided was satisfyingly congruent with what I’ve observed over the years: ‘Both tail movement and tail carriage convey information in dog–dog, dog–human and dog–object interactions. Across canids, tail wagging with low carriage is often used as a visual sign of appeasement, submission or non-aggressive intent. The combination of tail wagging and tail carriage seems a reliable status indicator of formal submission and subordination in dog–dog interactions. Tail wagging is also used as an appeasement or affiliative signal in dog–human interactions. One study found that during food denial situations, dogs wagged their tails more when a human was present versus not, suggesting that tail wagging may also function as a requesting signal.’ Come on, eh? I didn’t need a research paper to tell me that…

And what did they conclude? I mean what did I learn that I could tell the next kid on the trail with an empty leash? Well, ‘Dog tail wagging is a conspicuous yet scientifically elusive behaviour. Its uniqueness, complexity and ubiquity have the potential to be associated with multiple functions, but its mechanisms and ontogeny are still poorly understood.’ Uhmm…

I think he’d actually listen to me -the wise, grey-bearded elder- if I mentioned how I knew that the side the tail is wagged on is important and to watch for it. I’d dress it up in a little story, of course; I’d delve into my own childhood knowledge of Grimm or Aesop, and perhaps attach some sort of moral to it; turn it into a teachable moment that he’d remember, maybe. I’d stay away from the ones about wolves, though: apparently they don’t wag their tails, and one of them ate the kid who kept drawing attention to it…

[i] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0407

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