Have you ever looked at you dog and swore that he was smiling back at you?  From the beginning dogs have always had ways to communicate their emotions to us; from a happy, wagging tail to slinking away when scolded.  World renowned dog behaviour specialist and pack leader Cesar Millan says "the feeling that dogs experience aren't' connected to complex thoughts.  They don't have ulterior motives or doubt.  Their emotions are pure and honest." If you want to build a healthy bond with your dog and encourage good behaviour one of the best things you can do is learn how to read and react to his emotional cues.  Below are a couple of tips:

Joy - When you return home, you can easily tell how excited yourdog is to see you. He may run to you, jump up, bark, waghis tail and lick your face. These are all signs of pleasure.

Laughter - a bark can mean many different things, but a long loud pant is the sound of a dog laughing and can sometimes be found to have a calming or soothing effect on the animal. When the Spokane Country Regional Animal Protection Service (SCRAPS program) played the dog version of laughing over the loudspeaker at the shelter all 15 barking dogs went quite within about a minute.

Jealousy - According to a study from the National Academy of Sciences a dog has an innate sense of fair play andmay become resentful if they feel that another dog is being favoured. In the study, dogs were asked to "shake" and did so repeatedly...that is until another dog was given a piece offood as a reward while they received nothing. Then the unrewarded dogs began to hesitate when given the command and eventually stopped cooperating entirely.