sits beside me and looks at me panting as soon as: he wants something. During our walks I always say when it's time to go home: jumps, spins on its hind legs and take the hasty way back. I open the faucet of the bathtub, I turn around and launch a smile, a wagging her tail down, ears flattened. Does nothing but talk, but without uttering a sound.
There is a certain poignancy in defining our animals "silent friends", in noting the "tacit wonder "of a dog, nell'annuire to his" private silence. "They are all ways to talk about the family dog, which we do not respond in kind when we turn to them. A good part of the charm of the dogs we place lies in empathy when we contemplate them in silence. But these descriptions, however evocative, I appear wrong in two respects. On one side are not the animals who wish to speak but can not, we who want to get them to talk and we do not succeed. On the other almost all animals, dogs in particular, are neither dumb nor inexpressive. Dogs, like wolves, they communicate with their eyes, ears, tail and body posture.
Dogs speak. Communicate. Estab. Express themselves. Nothing surprising. The real surprise is the frequency and variety of their ways of communicating. Talk to each other, talk with us, talk to the noises behind the door or hiding in the tall grass. It is a herd instinct in us family: a plurality of communication modes from essential social creatures, like humans. Vocalizations, smells, poses and facial expressions come into play when a dog wants to communicate with his fellow, and if we listen, even with us.
(taken from: "How do you think your dog" by Alexandra Horowitz - 2010 Ed Knopf)
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