Do dogs laugh?

Can dogs smile?

We see the puckered lips of our four-legged friends every day: these happy fur babies radiate joy when we walk in the door, ask them if they are hungry, or take them out to play. But are we just projecting human emotions onto these cute little guys (anthropomorphism)? Or are these dogs really smiling?

Why do humans laugh?

Laughter is an expression of a person’s peaceful mind and kindness. At the same time, it is also a time when the secretion of endorphins in the body increases. Express your peace, joy, pleasure and other beautiful moods through various smiles.
Laughter is a result of primate evolution. Dogs are not primates! It is canine.
Dogs don’t really smile. Their “smiles” are just imitations and a means of communication – just like the gifts you give when you ask someone to do something. Your gift can make the things you want to do easier, and the dog’s “smile” can just give it a certain treat or need.
Dogs use their bodies to express happiness in many ways, but a truly human smile isn’t one of them!
Dogs are master observers and manipulators of human behavior, and their pedigree and experience teach how to effectively become more pampered.
The dog “smile” is an adaptive facial expression and behavior that has many evolutionary functions and advantages. Human smiles can express respect, promote connection and mediate conflicts. Dogs have been observing and imitating human smiles for more than 10,000 years, and have become very skillful in using them. After all, they only need to face people. The owner’s “smile” can be exchanged for the owner’s attention and delicious food. With such a powerful skill, it’s only natural that dogs will quickly adopt such a social technique.
When a dog responds in this way to its owner with laughter, attention, pampering, encouragement, and rewards, it quickly learns that this is a positive response to their behavior and will continue to “smile” because of it.
Dogs don’t smile, they just imitate to get what they want. You can understand that this “smile” of a dog is a fake smile! Because dogs not only “fake smile” when they are happy, they also “sneer” when they make mistakes.
The reason you have the illusion that your dog is smiling is because in the human world, smiles are contagious. If you smile at someone, in most cases, they will smile back at you. And when the object of this smile is a dog, you will subconsciously think of its backward grin as the smile of the other person.
But luckily, although the dog’s “smile” is fake, its joy is real.

A dog’s true smile lies in body language

To a dog, a real smile is “a bouncy body, a loose tail, a fast wagging tail, soft eyes, relaxed muzzle ears, licking, and jumping.”
If you observe carefully, you can see that if a dog has soft eyes and a relaxed body, even if it is not grinning, you can see that it means no harm. On the other hand, if this dog is grinning, but its whole body is stiff and its eyes are full of fierceness, would you still say that it is smiling?
A dog’s truly friendly “smile” is a highly adaptive behavior developed from puppyhood to adulthood, especially before one year old. It is also significantly affected by genetic domestication, such as golden retrievers and pull dogs. Brados, etc. are more likely to be friendly to other dogs than Chihuahuas and Pekingese dogs.
Although the scientific point of view that “dogs don’t really smile or smile at their owners” has been recognized by most people, in the eyes of the majority of dog parents, they still firmly believe that “my dog is smiling at me.” “
Me too, I also think my Labrador is smiling – smiling at me in a flattering way.

Dogs are the most adorable little animals that can heal everything! For example, Shiba Inu dogs with airplane ears not only have airplane ears, but they can also squint and smile! Seeing their smiles always makes me feel instantly healed.
Speaking of smiling, it seems that dogs open their mouths slightly and squint their eyes to smile. Do they really smile? Do they smile because they are happy, like humans?
From a scientific point of view, from the perspective of dog head muscle structure, they do not have such a complex muscle structure as human faces. The reason why human facial expressions are rich is that the facial muscle structure is complex, and various emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and joy can be expressed on the face. But dogs can’t. In other words, dogs smile but are not smiling.
The actions of dogs squinting their eyes and opening their mouths slightly are called “smiling” by humans, but in the eyes of dogs, they don’t know that such actions are smiles at all. Squinting their eyes and opening their mouth slightly to give their face a smile are also not ways they express happiness and joy. It’s just that when humans see a dog’s face, they subjectively think that the dog is smiling!
Since dogs are not smiling or expressing their happiness when they do this, why do they do it?

Expression of emotion

Dogs also express emotions, and when dogs squint their eyes and open their mouths slightly, it appears to humans that they are smiling. But from the dog’s perspective, they may be expressing their unhappiness!
When dogs relax, their mouth muscles also relax, which makes the dog appear to be smiling, but inside the dog may be expressing sadness, depression, etc. The way to tell if a dog is really happy or unhappy is to look at their tail. If they are not wagging their tail, then they are not showing happiness.

Dog socialization

There are different situations in dog fights. In one case, the fight is very fierce, and in the other case, it is just like a joke. When two dogs are playfully fighting, they will show their fangs and open their mouths slightly. This expression is different from the aggressive tooth display. This seemingly smiling expression is a way for dogs to express their relationship with another dog. Only the dogs know the specific meaning~

Please the shit shoveler

Some smart dogs will find that when they show such an expression, the dog owner will feel happy and even touch his head to reward himself. In order to please the owner and get more rewards, they will often show such facial expressions.
Although a dog’s “smile” is defined by humans, apart from their facial movements, their tails can better express their mood! The swaying and turning of their tails from side to side express their happiness, joy and excitement to us!