Introducing — The Growl Whisperer!

Well, it took a minute for humans to finally figure out that all growls aren’t the same.  There’s a growl that says “Back off!  I’m protecting my owner” and a very different growl that let’s the owner know that the dog collar is too tight.  Much like a baby’s cry, each sound has a different meaning and identifies a different need.  Not to be outdone by the horse whisperer, a bunch of dogs in Hungary were able to shed some light on the messages in the growls.  Since dogs don’t speak Hungarian, you might be wondering how they were able to communicate that to the researchers.  Well, here’s what happened.

According to new research described in Discovery News, Peter Pongracz, a behavioral biologist at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, recorded growls from 20 pet dogs while engaging in three different activities:

1. Watching a threatening stranger approach
2. Playing tug-of-war with their owners
3. Facing off with another dog for a bone

Not really detecting much audible difference between the more aggressive growls, he played the recordings to other dogs as they chewed on meaty calf bones to see if they would detect a difference.  Reportedly, the dogs that heard tapes of the bone-guarding dogs backed away from their bone in direct response to the threatening growls.  Recognizing the difference between the sounds, the dogs that heard the playful growls kept on chewing.

Upon further investigation, Pongracz and his team analyzed the growls with a computer and found some notable consistencies.  The playful growls were typically shorter and higher pitched than the threatening growls, according to Discovery News reports.  But, even as technologically advanced as computer are, they’re no match for dog ears because the computers still couldn’t detect the difference between the two threatening growls based on pitch, volume, etc.  (Go dogs!)

Chalk it up to our super-sonic hearing and the ability to say–er–growl what we mean.