If you had to pick one thing your dog does that can always bring a smile to your face, what would it be? Mine would be the head tilt. Every time I see the head tilt it cracks me up. But I had to wonder why do they do it?
It turns out, the head tilt is an effort to adjust the outer ear, acting as a tuning fork for your dogs hearing. Dogs have the ability to hear frequencies humans cannot, however they do have some trouble focusing on precise location of sounds. By tilting their heads it will move their ears into a better position and the sound will be heard clearer, helping them to better identify what it is, and where it is coming from. The human voice for the most part is a big blurry mess to our pets, they will learn to identify words and phrases, and tilting their heads will be a big part of making sense out of what we are talking about!
Dogs hear better from the sides then they do from the front. The head tilt is most common when the sound they are trying to identify is coming from directly in front of them, as it helps reposition their ears from the normal position of being aimed sideways to being aimed forwards.
The behavior is also a learned behavior. Since we enjoy this tilt so much it will often make us smile, or dote on our pet in some way, which to our pet is a reward. After seeing a few times they will be rewarded for the head tilt our pets will actually begin to do this action not only to hear better, but also to get a little extra love and attention when they need it.
Unfortunately the head tilt could also be a sign that something is wrong. The head tilt can indicate an issue in the inner ear. If your dog is tilting their head for seemingly no reason at all it could be a warning of an ear infection, or a poor balance condition. In both these causes you would notice some type of other symptoms as well, so don’t worry too much the head tilt is a problem. Symptoms of ear infections or balance related illness would most likely include nausea, falling, and a sense of struggle.
Dogs who tilt their heads are said to be very intelligent, dogs find so many interesting ways to communicate and interact with us, I wonder what else they are trying to tell us!
