The vocal communication of canines

Abstract

Canine vocalizations can be divided into several types and these types of vocalizations can carry the senders’ emotional state to receivers such as other dogs and humans. When humans send a signal consisting of short notes, it can elicit a reactive response and increase motor activity levels more so than a signal consisting of a longer continuous note. This means that humans and dogs can communicate with each other using acoustic signals. These canine vocalizations can be analyzed by computer-aided programs that evaluate several parameters including fundamental frequency, and other frequency variables like minimum and maximum frequency, duration of call, inter-call duration, amplitude variables, harmonic to noise ratio (HNR), nonlinear phenomena, like limit cycle, subharmonic, biphonation, and chaos. Dogs’ vocalizations can be analyzed using objective scientific criteria with these parameters, and using this analysis, we know that dog vocalizations fall into several context based vocal types. Also humans can distinguish the difference in dog barks. The dogs’ barking can be a behavioral problem because of their high intensity especially in urban areas. Treatment methods may include environmental manipulation, behavior modification, and positive re-enforcement. This paper discusses the literature related to scientific analysis of canine vocalization.