If the dog wags his tail, can I stroke him?

It is no guarantee. Tail movement indicates arousal, not necessarily willingness to be touched. Look at the rest of the body: a soft mouth, evenly distributed weight and a wide movement involving the hips are positive signs. A high stiff tail, a tense body and a hard stare indicate a state in which it is better to give space and let the dog choose to approach.

My cat purrs during the examination, does that mean she is fine?

Not always. Purring appears in pleasant situations but also in pain, fear and illness, and it is also considered a self soothing mechanism. Read it alongside the other signals: a hunched posture, dilated pupils, ears rotated back and a tail held tight to the body indicate stress even when purring is clearly audible.

My dog looks guilty when I come home, does he understand?

He is reading you, not repenting. The expression appears in response to tone of voice, posture and facial expression, and in experiments it shows up even when the animal did nothing. Telling off after the fact teaches nothing and makes your return less predictable, which is exactly what you do not want when there is already tension.

How many signals does it take to call it stress?

There is no fixed threshold, but the practical rule is to look for convergence: three different signals at the same moment in the same context are solid evidence, one alone can be coincidence. Frequency counts too: the same signal appearing every day in the same situation describes stable tension, and that deserves either an environmental change or an examination.

Behaviour and training8 min readUpdated on August 1, 2026

The stress signals owners read backwards

Yawning, nose licking, a moving tail, purring: the signals that look like affection or calm and mean the opposite, translated one by one.

Audience: Pet owners
Species: Dog, Cat
Scope: Valid everywhere

A dog that yawns while a child hugs it is not relaxed, it is asking for space. A cat that purrs at the vet is not always fine, sometimes it is trying to soothe itself. Dogs and cats communicate with a repertoire of subtle signals that come long before any visible reaction, and most household incidents happen because those signals were read backwards or not seen at all. Learning to recognise them is not only about avoiding bites and scratches: it is about knowing when an animal is accumulating tension, which is well before the problem becomes a problem. This is a translation guide, signal by signal, with the context that changes the meaning.

Why we read them backwards

The first reason is that we use our own repertoire to interpret theirs. A mouth movement that in a human resembles a smile usually means tension in a companion animal. The second reason is that discomfort signals are discreet by design: their purpose is to avoid conflict, so they are small, brief and easy to miss. The third reason is that the images circulating online reward exactly the scenes in which the animal is uncomfortable: the hug, the costume, the child lying on the dog, the face pressed close.

Then there is the so called guilty look. A dog that lowers itself, looks away and flattens its ears when it finds an angry owner is not confessing to knocking over the bin: it is responding to your tone and your posture. Experimental work on this expression shows that it appears when the person scolds the animal, whether or not the animal did anything. It is a response to the present, not a statement about the past.

Dog signals, translated

Common canine signals, usual reading and likelier meaning
Signal	Usual reading	Likelier meaning
Yawning outside of sleep	He is sleepy and relaxed	Rising tension, a request for space
Quick lick of the nose	He is hungry or just ate	Appeasement signal in an uncomfortable situation
Half moon eye with visible white	Sweet look, big eyes	Discomfort with a still head and a tense body
Fast, stiff tail held high	He is happy	High arousal, unpredictable outcome
Panting with the corners of the mouth pulled back	He is smiling	Stress, if there is no heat and no exertion
Sudden scratching or shaking off	He is itchy	Tension release at the end of a difficult moment
Complete stillness of the body	He has calmed down	Freezing, often the last step before a reaction

The tail deserves a separate note. What counts is not that it moves, but its height, its amplitude and its stiffness. A wide, loose movement involving the whole rear end usually accompanies a positive state. A small, fast, stiff movement with the tail held above the line of the back indicates arousal: it can precede boisterous play or conflict, and on its own it is not enough to decide whether to approach.

Cat signals, translated

Common feline signals, usual reading and likelier meaning
Signal	Usual reading	Likelier meaning
Purring in the clinic or while in pain	She is happy	Self soothing, purring does not only signal wellbeing
Belly exposed with a tense body	An invitation to cuddle	Defensive position, all four paws stay available
Tail thumping the floor	Like a dog, she is pleased	Rising irritation, better to stop the contact
Dilated pupils in a bright room	Curiosity	Emotional arousal, fear or intense excitement
Hiding for hours	She wants some peace	Early sign of stress or of physical illness
Persistent grooming always in the same spot	She is clean	Displacement behaviour, often linked to pain or anxiety
Toileting outside the litter tray	Spite	A resource problem, tray hygiene or urinary tract disease

The ladder from discomfort to bite

Signals are not a disordered list: they follow a progression. First the discreet ones, asking for pressure to be reduced. If nobody listens, communication escalates until it becomes unmistakable. The bite or the scratch sits at the bottom of the ladder, not at the top, which is why almost no episode truly happens without warning.

Looks away, turns the head aside, yawns or licks the nose.
Moves away or looks for an exit, goes behind furniture or behind you.
Freezes, stops panting, stiffens the body and stares at the stimulus.
Shows teeth or hisses, in cats with rotated ears and a bristled tail.
Growls, with a sound that lasts and that comes before any movement.
Snaps at the air as a warning, without closing the mouth on skin.
Bites or scratches with full contact.

The same signal in different contexts

No isolated signal has a certain meaning. A dog panting after a run at thirty degrees is thermoregulating; the same dog panting while standing still in a cool waiting room is signalling discomfort. A cat grooming after a meal is cleaning itself; the same cat repeatedly licking its flank while the other cat walks past is showing displacement behaviour.

Look at the whole body: mouth, ears, eyes, tail, weight and posture tell the same story only when they agree.
Take temperature and exertion into account before interpreting panting or cooling behaviour.
Ask what happened in the previous ten seconds: the antecedent almost always explains the signal.
Check whether the signal is new. A behaviour that appeared a few weeks ago in an adult animal points to a medical cause before a training one.
Compare against that individual's usual repertoire, not against the species in general.

How to record an episode usefully

An episode recalled from memory loses exactly the information that matters. The simplest and most robust framework has three parts: antecedent, behaviour, consequence. It separates what triggers a behaviour from what maintains it, and within a few weeks it reveals patterns no subjective impression can capture.

Antecedent
What happened immediately before: who was present, where, what time it was, which noise or which contact preceded the signal. Note the distance of the stimulus as well.
Behaviour
Describe what you saw, not what you believe the animal felt. The useful sentence is of the kind he froze for three seconds and turned his head, not he was angry.
Consequence
What happened right afterwards: the stimulus moved away, someone laughed, the animal gained space. The consequence explains why the behaviour repeats.
Intensity and recovery
Give intensity a value from 0 to 5 and note how many seconds it took to return to normal. These two numbers show the trend over time better than any description.

Ten episodes recorded this way are worth more than months of observation without notes. Bring them to the appointment: they let the vet see whether the pattern is tied to certain times, to one particular person, to a room, or whether it is progressively worsening, which is the first clue of a clinical cause.

Frequently asked questions

If the dog wags his tail, can I stroke him?: It is no guarantee. Tail movement indicates arousal, not necessarily willingness to be touched. Look at the rest of the body: a soft mouth, evenly distributed weight and a wide movement involving the hips are positive signs. A high stiff tail, a tense body and a hard stare indicate a state in which it is better to give space and let the dog choose to approach.
My cat purrs during the examination, does that mean she is fine?: Not always. Purring appears in pleasant situations but also in pain, fear and illness, and it is also considered a self soothing mechanism. Read it alongside the other signals: a hunched posture, dilated pupils, ears rotated back and a tail held tight to the body indicate stress even when purring is clearly audible.
My dog looks guilty when I come home, does he understand?: He is reading you, not repenting. The expression appears in response to tone of voice, posture and facial expression, and in experiments it shows up even when the animal did nothing. Telling off after the fact teaches nothing and makes your return less predictable, which is exactly what you do not want when there is already tension.
How many signals does it take to call it stress?: There is no fixed threshold, but the practical rule is to look for convergence: three different signals at the same moment in the same context are solid evidence, one alone can be coincidence. Frequency counts too: the same signal appearing every day in the same situation describes stable tension, and that deserves either an environmental change or an examination.

What to do next

Pick a daily situation you suspect is difficult for your animal and film two minutes of it, then watch the video in slow motion counting yawns, lip licks, head turns and moments of stillness. Record the next three episodes with the antecedent, behaviour and consequence framework, and take those notes to the next appointment.