# Reading your dog: what the body says before the bark | Diona The Trainer Gibbs the Kelpie cross from Yarraville had demand barking, dog reactivity, and a tail tip that told you exactly what he was thinking. Body language in practice, and the cornered moment that proved the training had landed. By Melbourne dog trainer Diona Chu. By Diona Chu ยท 8 minute read --- Tayla and Michael came to Diona with Gibbs, a Kelpie cross from Yarraville, because he was barking at everything in the backyard, reactively lunging at other dogs on walks, and marking obsessively at every surface they passed. He was a young dog with a high-drive breed behind him and a household that had not yet found a structure that held him. What was notable about this case was how fast Tayla picked up body language reading once she started looking for it. By the third session she was catching micro-signals most owners miss for months. ## The tail is not what most people think it is Most owners watch a wagging tail and conclude the dog is friendly or happy. The tail is one of the most information-rich parts of a dog's body, and whether it is wagging tells you almost nothing. What the tail is doing in terms of position, stiffness, and which part is moving tells you a great deal. Gibbs had a specific tell. When he went into what Diona calls a stare or near-point, the tip of his tail would start flicking. Not a whole-tail wag. Just the tip. That tip movement, with the rest of the tail stiff, was the sign of a dog entering a predatory chain: locate, orient, stalk. It was the signal that the next few seconds would produce either a redirect or a lunge. "He went into STARE, almost POINT. You can see the flicking on the tail. Only the tip is moving. Not a whole-tail wag." Once Tayla could see that tip movement, she had a two-second window. Two seconds is enough to change direction, put a foot on the lead, or drop into PLAY before the chain advances. On the lunge, you are responding to history. Two seconds before it, you are responding to a signal. ## What the ear position tells you Ears tracking forward and staying forward, not moving, not releasing: that is increasing fixation. When the ears soften, angle back slightly, or stop tracking: the dog has disengaged from the trigger, even momentarily. That disengagement is the window. With Gibbs on walks, Michael and Tayla were sending video footage. Diona would write back with timestamps: at this point his ears went up, at this point they're still up, at this point they tracked back, at this point he glanced at Michael and that was the moment to say "ready." They were watching Gibbs from inside the experience of walking him. The footage let Diona watch from outside it, and what she could see was usually several seconds ahead of what they were catching in the moment. After a few weeks of feedback like that, Tayla stopped needing the timestamps. She was catching it in real time. ## The difference between demand barking and trigger barking Gibbs had two distinct barking patterns, and they were not the same problem. His trigger barking on walks was arousal-based: he saw a dog, the waterline rose, he reacted. His demand barking at home was attention-seeking: he was barking because barking had produced results in the past. Treating both the same way would have been wrong. The trigger reactivity needed waterline work. The demand barking needed a simple rule change: barking does not produce attention, ever. For the worst of the demand barking, an interrupter was introduced at the peak moment. Between triggers, when Gibbs made a good choice: a big party. The ratio matters. If the only feedback is interruption, the dog becomes shut down. The goal is interruption at the wrong choice and genuine reward at the right one. ## The moment the training had landed Tayla wrote: "We had an almost aggressive dog walk past us when we were almost back to our gate. I turned him towards the gate with a left turn and kept him in handbrake until the dog passed. His ears went down and back almost immediately and boy oh boy I praised and praised." The next sentence: "He really chose not to react to quite a high aroused dog, in a position where we couldn't really move away. Just faced away. He looked up at me with tail wagging proud as punch." That is a dog who has learned that his owner reads the environment and that he does not need to do it himself. The trust built between them over the program was the reason he made that choice. A few months later, unprompted: "We have had the BEST times with Gibbs today. He's been the loosest-leashed boy in town." --- **Private training in Melbourne.** The first session is mostly teaching you to read your own dog. That skill is what changes everything else. [Enquire about private dog training.](https://www.dionathetrainer.com/private-dog-training.html)