Here’s How To Tell What Mood Your Dog Is In

It doesn't matter if you're gone 5 minutes, an hour, or all day long. When you get home and open the door, there he is so happy to see you and tail wagging a hundred miles an hour. There's no doubt about the mood Fido is in...he's beyond happy you're back!

And if you look a little more closely at that tail, the one that won't stop, you may notice something: It's wagging a little more to the right than to the left. Huh?

Well, in this day and age of research and studies of anything and everything, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised about a (get ready for it) study on the wagging of a dog's tail. And no, I'm not kidding.

The folks at the University of Trento in Italy decided someone should look into wagging dog tails and it might as well be us. And in general, here's what they found:

If that 'ol tail more to the right your four-legged friend is feeling great! In fact, the word they use is 'gleeful'. So in your pup's world, all is well!

If it's tending to wag more to the left, well that signals alarm or maybe not quite so happy. They talk about, as an example, when you're out walking the pooch and he sees another dog. If that tail is leaning and wagging left, it might be suggesting alarm or less than 'gleeful'. He may be gauging how this other dog (intruder!) is going to respond.

And after the two get to know each other and find out they like each other, well, that tail will start wagging to the right again.

So is this research valuable? Uh, I guess I'll leave that to you to decide. ZME Science has the story here.

Oh, and in my many years of experience, I've scientifically discovered that if the dog bites you, that usually means he's not happy. And neither are you.