Communication
Effective communication is essential for the formation and maintance of social relationships. Dogs same as wolves have three main methods of communication: auditory, visual and olfactory.
Auditory communication
Auditory communication may be employed over a range of distances and is particulary useful when vision is impaired, for example in thick vegetation. Range of signals given by wolves have also been recorded in domestic dogs. They include diverse range of sounds from grunts, whines, yelps and screams to tooth snapping, coughing, growling, and of course barking.
Methods of auditory communication used by domestic dogs
Sound Behaviour
Bark Defense
Play
Greeting
Lone call
Call for attention
Warning
Grunt Greeting
Sign of contentment
Growl Defense warning
Threat signal
Play
Whimper / Whine Submission
Defence
Greeting
Pain
Attention seeking
Effective communication with sound requires an auditory system that can both recieve and decode sound signals. Dogs have relatively ordinary hearing abilities compared with other mamals. Their sensitivity at low frequencies is generally similar that that of cats and humans. At higher pitches, dogs become increasingly more sensitive than humans. The upper frequency limit of hearing in four dogs did not vary with their size, indicating that high-frequency sensitivity may be a species typical characteristic.
