Strange way of communicating

[john landry]

One of my two BCs seldom barks in order to get me to play with her but does have a strange way of saying «Come on, hurry up will you! »: she will open and shut her mouth (call it “crunching”?) two or three times in succession making enough noise with her teeth banging together that the resulting sound can be heard some fifteen feet away. She will do this if she thinks I’m making her wait too long! (The vet says her teeth are fine!) Her breeder, who “baby sits” our dogs from time to time, says that she has never seen this before and neither has our trainer for that matter. I was rather stunned the first time I saw Lili do this since she was a slightly fear aggressive BC when we rescued her (I’m pleased to say that she has come around beautifully in the last two months – I must be managing my frustrations better...). At first, I wondered if it was in any way a form of aggressive behaviour but it never has lead to any aggressiveness – she will do her “crunching” act standing and will simply flop down if I wait her out. Has anyone seen this type of communication before? Does it mean anything other than “Hurry up”? My other BC has picked up on it and will “crunch” once in awhile. It makes for a very funny sight when both of them do it at the same time.

 

John

[Laurae]

Sophie has done this all her life. We call it "snappyface." She does it only when she wants us to do something with her—play with her, train with her, run with her, hike with her, etc. She was much, much more likely to be snappyface as a younger dog (she's eight now), and it was my barometer for knowing that I was keeping her mental and physical needs met. When friends have petsat for her, I used to get the snappyface report. (Don't much anymore; she really doesn't need to do it as much anymore, I guess, which actually makes me a little sad, as it means she is slowing down some.) I have never met another dog who communicates that particular way...

[sweet_ceana]

Poke doesn't crunch, but he has his own way of saying hurry up. He paws at us or anything metal (makes a better noise I guess) in order to get our attention. Not crazy pawing, but just one swipe to get your attention and refocus the distarcted people.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Haha! Daisy does that too! She has quite the attitude behind her when she gets excited about playing and sometimes if I tell her "no barking" she does the snappyface, it's like a bark with no sound, it cracks me up every time!!! I know she is irritated when she does it!

[theshine]

One of my shelties does this too, more to the other dogs than to us, but it's when he wants to play that he does it. We call it the gator snap or gator mouth.

[WyoBC]

Mine talks to me if I take to long getting ready to go to town. First he'll growl at me, then he'll kind of growl/howl at me. It's like a "ahhhh rooo rooo rooo" sound. Then when I'm ready and head for the door he takes off running as fast as he can bucking like a horse. But his back end doesn't come off the ground as high

 

Black Jack only gets snappyfaced when he's playing. If you fake throw the ball he'll jump in the air and snap too. Scared me the first time he did it!

[Pat W.]

Our Meg does this too, she is much more likely to do it since we taught her "Whisper" because she has a loud piercing bark. We call it Clacking her jaws. It usually means, I want to go out to 1) Play 2)Potty 3)because I can

[Allie Oop]

Lots of different names for the same thing -- we call it "chattering".

[Beth G]

Popcorn does that too, while rearing up like a horse, at the same time...lol.