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Grrr… what's 'Step away from the bone' in dog?

By Ewen Callaway

10 March 2010

Click here to see and hear the dogs in action

THE canine phrase book has collected its first entries. Dogs understand the meaning of different growls, from a rumble that says “back off” to playful snarls made in a tug-of-war game.

Proving that animal vocalisations have specific meanings – and what they could be – is challenging. In 2008, Péter Pongrácz, a behavioural biologist at in Budapest, Hungary, monitored dogs’ heart rates to show that they seem to notice a difference between barks aimed at strangers and those directed at nothing in particular. Now…

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