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Hello collaborator! Here is a story for you… One day while Muggins and I were playing in the yard, I took a breath to roll the garbage bins in from the driveway. Muggins walked with me and I began to roll the bin, which made a really loud and ominous sound. Muggins responded by jumping up and down, barking, and grabbing the leash with their mouth. Their tail was high in the air and wagging. To most people, this looked like Muggins wanted to play. However, as I continued to roll the bin, I recalled that Muggins does not bark much when they play. I also noticed that their tail was wagging with some stiffness, but when they play their tail is quite loose and floppy. These subtle differences clued me in to the fact that Muggins was not playing, they were scared. I believe that Muggins’s “playful” appearance was coming from a place of “appeasement”. This is a fear response that we go to when we feel threatened, yet still have some ability to maintain social interaction. I found myself in appeasement mode once when a human we met during a walk pushed Muggins into a Sit without my or their permission. I commented on how the human seemed so experienced with dogs, when in fact I felt afraid at seeing someone physically force my dog to do something. My compliment was an attempt to appear like everything was fine (rather than saying it definitely wasn’t) so that this human would not become angry or do anything further. Muggins’s “playful” appearance was their way of appearing nonthreatening, or perhaps asking me to stop, so that the bin would not hurt them. How can we know whether our dogs are playing or appeasing? How might we gain insight into whether they feel safe or in danger? How can you know whether you are in appeasement mode or witnessing an interaction that scares you? What kind of relationship would you have, with your dog and with yourself, if these subtle cues and your own agency were more available to you? Well, I have been thinking about this for a while and I would like to share with you a framework I have developed to help us answer these questions:
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