Is Your Dog Happy? There's 1 Way To Tell — And No, It's Not A Wagging Tail

Dogs are just the best, aren’t they?

Though it’s impossible to quantify the joy they constantly inject into our lives, studies have shown owning a pooch can reduce our loneliness, diminish our stress and anxiety, and even help us live longer.

Considering how much our furry friends offer us, how can we ensure they’re as content as they can be? And since they obviously can’t tell us how they’re feeling, how do we know if we’re succeeding? Do supposedly telltale signs like a wagging tail or giving us kisses really mean they’re happy?

That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the co-hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — aimed to find out when we recently chatted with Dr. Emily Levine, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and the owner of Animal Behavior Clinic of New Jersey.

Levine told us that, no, tail wagging doesn’t necessarily mean a dog is happy.

“We have to look at more than the actual wag. You have to look at the rest of the dog’s body — you can’t just look at one body part to tell what they’re feeling because there are dogs who will, quote, ‘happily aggress.’”

She added that different wags might signal different things.

“If it’s fast and loose versus stiff and rhythmical, the direction it goes more toward — all of that can be varied emotions,” she said.

That’s because a wagging tail simply means the dog is aroused in some way. In order to determine if that arousal is positive or negative, Levine advised we look at the dog’s overall body language and the context in which we’re observing it.

“I usually just tell people if you want to guarantee this means the dog is happy, their whole butt is going back and forth, side to side. That — they’re happy.”

She also suggested we look for “the happy