Relevance of Ear Movements in Dog's Emotional Expressions

Antonio Meridda^*

Dipartimento di Scienze Veterinarie Università di Pisa, viale delle Piagge 2, 56124 Pisa, Italy

*Corresponding Author : Antonio Meridda
Dipartimento di Scienze Veterinarie Università di Pisa, viale delle Piagge 2, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Tel: + 340 6483500
E-mail: ameridda@yahoo.com

Received: July 08, 2017 Accepted: July 25, 2017 Published: July 29, 2017

Citation: Meridda A (2017) Relevance of Ear Movements in Dog’s Emotional Expressions. J Vet Sci Med Diagn 6:3. doi: 10.4172/2325-9590.1000234

In dog’s mimicry, ears movements are absolutely relevant. Dogs use them like humans using eyebrows: for a better communication. Using the DOGFACS maps,elative to the ears movement classification (EAD, Ears Action Units), we try to connect every EAD to a specific emotion. We consider just the fundamental emotion: fear, surprise, anger, happiness, disgust, sadness. Of course, dog communication is very complex, so just the ears movements are not enough to completely understand it, but, like for human eyebrows, they help very much in the comprehension. We analyzed the 6 emotions in 41 different dogs to have enough data.