Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren vog Obam here with another classic episode
Speaker 1: from our former host, Christian Sager. This one is about
Speaker 1: one of my favorite topics that's something of a mystery
Speaker 1: to science, dog psychology, and more specifically, social yawning. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, it's Christian Sager. I've got to come clean.
Speaker 1: I like dogs. In fact, I own to my dog, Winchester,
Speaker 1: does this thing whenever I get home from work, where
Speaker 1: he's super excited and he's jumping around all happy, and
Speaker 1: then he starts yawning for some reason. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's just tired, or maybe he's waking up. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but he seems pretty delighted. And yawning is
Speaker 1: one of the primary ways dogs communicate in their whole
Speaker 1: complicated system of subtle body language. It could mean several things.
Speaker 1: Did you know that yawning is actually the first expression
Speaker 1: dogs learn to use when they're tiny puppies, So it
Speaker 1: has multiple meanings depending on the situation a dog is in.
Speaker 1: Dogs usually yawn when they want to send a pacifying
Speaker 1: or calming signal out to other dogs or people, like, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: let's take a breather and just chill out. Okay. Yawns
Speaker 1: have no element of fear or aggression for dogs. It's
Speaker 1: like the exact opposite of a threat. So imagine this.
Speaker 1: You're in a fistfight and all you have to do
Speaker 1: is just be like, yeawn, nothing dangerous or intimidating here,
Speaker 1: just I'm I'm like bored. But wait, why would my
Speaker 1: dog do that to me? Okay? Sometimes dogs yawn when
Speaker 1: they're getting obedience training. If a dog is frustrated, he
Speaker 1: might be asking you to give him a little break,
Speaker 1: That is, if he sees you as the dominant one
Speaker 1: in your relationship. It could also mean that your dog
Speaker 1: might be just cooling off his brain. There's a veterinary
Speaker 1: behaviorist at you See Davis that thinks dog brains get
Speaker 1: hot during periods of inactivity. Dog brains get warm because
Speaker 1: their circulation slows down, so yawning supposedly cools the arterial
Speaker 1: blood down, helping the dog's brain function. There's one other
Speaker 1: thing that yawning and dogs might mean. Dogs also yawn
Speaker 1: when they're dealing with anxiety or uncertainty, and this includes
Speaker 1: being excited. So maybe my dog is just trying to
Speaker 1: control his enthusiasm. And Oh also, dogs yawn when they're
Speaker 1: nervous too, Like in a VETS office. Do you yawn
Speaker 1: when you're nervous? Check this out. Dogs can also catch
Speaker 1: yawning from the human beings around them. You know how
Speaker 1: if you yawn, then other people in the room around
Speaker 1: you often start yawning. Well, that often has to do
Speaker 1: with a person's capacity for empathy, you know, feeling what
Speaker 1: somebody else feels. Well, there was a study about this
Speaker 1: that was published in a journal called Biology Letters in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, and they said twenty one out
Speaker 1: of twenty nine dogs yawned at least once in response
Speaker 1: to the yawn of an assistant in the room with them.
Speaker 1: Human to dog yawn contagion. It sounds like the beginning
Speaker 1: of a zombie movie where everyone just yawned at each other.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Christian and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more in this and lots of other catchy topics,
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