At the moment, I am raising my first litter.  The puppies are only two weeks old, but are already using calming signals during intensive handling sessions.

The most obvious of which is yawning.  I don’t think I have seen a puppy yawn once in the whelping box – all have yawned while they are being handled.  Obviously, the puppies are not merely tired.

For those who are unaware, “Calming Signals” is a term coined by Turid Rugaas to describe behaviours that communicate discomfort or stress. One of them is yawning, and my puppies are clearly displaying this behaviour.  Another is the ‘look away’. I am certain that taking photographs of these puppies would not be so hard if this signal wasn’t mastered yet.  I have also seen the occasional lip licking, though not with enough conviction that I am convinced it is a calming signal.

I guess my interest in posting this observation is the very early stage of this yawning – why are puppies this young yawning?

There is some debate about whether calming signals are for the benefit of the other animal (e.g. another dog) or actually work in calming the dog down who is displaying the behaviour.  It could be proposed that, at this stage, the puppies are only interacting with their mother.  I have doubts whether they are using these behaviours to solely communicate with her. So perhaps calming signals are working in these young puppies to calm them down?

Perhaps our pet dogs need calming signals in preparedness of interacting with humans.  This raises questions about the origins of calming signals.  Do wolves make calming signals?  How about some wild dog-like species, like New Guinea Singing Dogs or Dingos?  Could this very young display of calming signals be as a result of puppies having to interact with outsiders sooner than their wild cousins (considering that puppies ‘in the wild’ would be in a den for several weeks)?

This is a simple observation, but it makes you wonder – what’s the point of yawning when you’re two weeks old?

(Turid’s website is Calming Signals Community. For more information about Calming Signals, you can access DogWise.com’s selection of Turid Rugaas books. I can personally vouch for the fantastic “On Talking Terms With Dogs” DVD, though the rest of her resources are yet to be dissected.)