Page 122 - Showsight April 2013

even though there was no visual
evidence of dogs playing.
Recently, Simonet played the
canine “laugh track” at the Spo-
kane, WA animal shelter. Nancy
Hill, director of Spokane County
Animal Protection, admits she
was skeptical at first that this
noise would affect the other dogs.
When they played the sound of a
dog panting over the loudspeaker,
the gaggle of dogs at the shelter
kept right on barking. But when
they played the dog version of
laughing, all fifteen barking dogs
went quiet within about a minute.
“It was a night-and-day differ-
ence,” Hill said. “It was absolutely
phenomenal.” Simonet herself has
learned to imitate the sounds of
dogs laughing. When she creates
this mimicking of dog laughter
in the company of canines, she
always receives some sort of posi-
tive response from the dogs. At
last, a canine ethologist has veri-
fied what observant dog lovers
have known for decades – dogs
can and do laugh!
In my own dogs, fun with
squeaky toys that I throw for
them, or often the “bitey-face”
game among themselves will
elicit canine laughter. From bit-
ey-face, the play will intensify to
wrestling, and then the vocaliza-
tions consist of play-growling
and barking. As a break from
that rough-and-tumble play or,
perhaps, to prevent the wres-
tling from becoming too aggres-
sive, the dogs often revert back to
At last a canine ethologist has
verified what observant dog
lovers have known for decades—
dogs can and do laugh!
122 • ShowSight Magazine, April 2013