Written by Dogoos Editorial · Editorial team
Picture the scene that plays out in countless homes and on countless social feeds every single day, a beaming person wrapping both arms around a beloved dog while the camera clicks. It looks like pure love, and from our side it absolutely is, yet the dog in the frame is often telling a quietly different story. In 2024 a research team coded the body language in 190 of the most-watched videos of people playing with, petting and hugging dogs.
In the 80 hugging clips 64 of the dogs blinked, a recognised stress signal, against 3 of the 30 dogs filmed playing, and about two thirds of the hugged dogs turned their heads away. The authors' own summary was blunt: a high number of stress behaviours were observed in the dogs involved. These were the most-watched hugs on the internet rather than a random sample of dogs, though, so they show what a filmed hug looks like, not what share of all dogs mind one. The mismatch underneath is simple, because a hug is our greeting and not theirs.
Nothing in a dog's own repertoire matches it, and the nearest thing they have, one dog laying its paws over another, is read by behaviour researchers as intimidating rather than affectionate. Being held still is a problem in itself.
When Beerda and colleagues tested six stimuli picked for being unpleasant in 1998, two of the six were forms of restraint, and moderate social stress showed up as restlessness, oral behaviour like licking, yawning and an open mouth, though that was an experimenter holding a dog rather than a cuddle from the person who feeds it. The good news is that dogs are honest communicators once you know the vocabulary.
Watch for a flick of the tongue over the lips with no food anywhere near, a yawn that has nothing to do with tiredness, the head turning slowly away like a polite refusal, ears going flat back, and a dog who freezes rather than going soft and wiggly. Behaviourists group these as calming or appeasement signals, the canine equivalent of a strained smile.
Whale eye, that crescent of white as the dog holds their head still and swivels their gaze, belongs there too, though it comes from a vet school's bite-prevention guidance rather than a study: NC State pairs it with ears down and back and warns that such a dog may snap if a child reaches to pet or hug him. Flat ears deserve a caution of their own.
In a 2025 pilot, 18 therapy dogs were either held on the lead while a stranger stroked them or left loose in a pen to come over if they fancied it, and ears back was the only signal that rose significantly under the forced version. Avoidance and sniffing were actually higher when the dogs were free, which the authors put down to an off-lead dog treating itself as off duty, so read flat ears as a reason to look closer rather than a verdict. What stays with you is what those dogs did with the freedom: loose in the pen, they still spent 77.
9% of the time within reach of a person. Some dogs do seem to enjoy the full-body version, going loose and heavy across a lap rather than stiff and patient. Nobody has counted them, though, or shown what makes a dog that way, so the confident lines about certain breeds, or about gentle handling as a puppy, are guesses in a lab coat. Which leaves asking your own dog, and force-free trainers have a simple way to do that. Give a few seconds of the affection in question, then stop completely and take your arms away.
A dog who wanted it turns back, nudges your hand or paws for more, while a dog who was being polite takes the opening to step away, shake off and settle somewhere else. No study has tested that little routine, so treat it as a rule of thumb rather than a test with a score, but it is the closest thing we have to asking. All of this matters most where children are involved.
When 402 caregivers of children up to six were surveyed, 46% often saw their child hug the dog, 27% often saw kissing, 12% often saw the dog move away from the child, and the adults watched less closely as the child grew older. Of 203 children treated at one urban trauma centre, 72% knew the dog that bit them, most bites to the youngest came during friendly contact the child had started, with a familiar dog, indoors, and 70% of bites in the under-sevens were to the face.
The evidence names close, friendly contact, not a particular pose, so nobody can honestly tell you the arms-round-the-neck hug is the bite position, however often you have read it. A survey of 1,053 Thai dog owners adds the everyday version: of the 479 who had been bitten or scratched, 22. 12% named close contact, meaning petting, hugging or kissing, among the causes. Self-reported and one country, but 71. 60% of everyone surveyed called hugging, kissing and petting the correct way to show an animal love, and that gap is the whole subject here.
So teach small children to stroke a dog on the shoulder or the back rather than over the head, and never to wrap their arms round the head and neck. Supervise every interaction, including with the family dog everyone believes is friendly, which is exactly where NC State's Dr Barbara Sherman puts the emphasis, and give your dog a bed or open crate nobody follows them into. That last one is ordinary good practice rather than a tested finding, but it costs nothing.
And if you ever see whale eye, or that worried, ears-back face, around a child, separate them calmly and speak to your vet or a qualified behaviourist. None of this is your dog asking to be loved less, only for the version they can read: sitting beside you rather than being held by you, and a say in when the cuddle ends. The one spot the vet-school guidance actually names is the shoulder or the back, not the top of the head and not the chin scratch the internet is so sure about.
What has been measured, in one small pen of therapy dogs at least, is that a dog free to move away mostly did not. So keep the photos, keep the squeeze for the dog who clearly votes yes, and for everyone else swap it for a shoulder to lean on, which, done their way, is a hug of a different and rather wonderful kind.
Sources & further reading
- Human-dog communication: How body language and non-verbal cues are key to clarity in dog directed play, petting and hugging behaviour by hum — Applied Animal Behaviour Science (Elsevier), vol. 272, article 106206
- Behavioural, saliva cortisol and heart rate responses to different types of stimuli in dogs — Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 58(3-4):365-381 (1998)
- Can I touch you? A pilot study comparing consensual and non-consensual human-dog touch interactions — Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol. 285, article 106560 (April 2025)
- Behavioural characteristics associated with dog bites to children presenting to an urban trauma centre — Injury Prevention (BMJ), 17(5):348-353 (2011) (2011-03-28)
- When Affection Becomes Risk: Human–Dog Interactions Associated with Bite and Scratch Injuries in a Survey of Dog Owners' Knowledge, Attitude — Animals (MDPI), 16(12):1809 (2026-06-11)
- Caregiver Reports of Interactions between Children up to 6 Years and Their Family Dog—Implications for Dog Bite Prevention — Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 4:130 (2017) (2017-08-30)
- Understanding your dog's body language — RSPCA (UK)
- NC State College of Veterinary Medicine behaviorist urges awareness to protect children from dog bites — NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine (2016-05-16)