Max breaks down what a dog rolling over actually means. A still, glance-away roll says "don't approach." A loose, wiggly roll toward you wants affection. An anxious dog might do both at once, so give it space and move slowly.
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This here is a dog rolling over in a state of submissiveness, saying, "I'm no threat, please don't eat me." So, would a dog rolling over when we approach them mean the same thing? Halbjorn! My name is Max, and welcome to day 33 of How to Read Your Dog's Body Language Until We Run Out of Dog to Look At. And we are in the week of honorable mentions, and we're on rolling over. The controversial topic. So, does this rollover mean, "I'm no threat"? Please don't eat me. Yes, that is exactly what it means. But that's not the end of the video. Just like other topics we've covered, like yawning and tongue flicks, it's not as simple as this equals bad stuff, like so many dog trainers make it out to be. Trust me, I've seen many videos of dog trainers breaking this topic down going, this means go away, but the dog clearly wants love. Stupid. So here's how we can tell the difference. The first thing that we look at, it's really obvious, is the dog before they roll over. If this dog is not coming towards you, if this dog is quite still, maybe they are glancing away from you, and then they roll over. I mean, before they rolled over, it's obvious the dog isn't wanting love or attention. But you do get subtle versions like this, where this dog is asleep, a human approaches, and you see that head drop, that tongue flick, the look away, and they try to roll on their sides. So just be aware of these subtle ones. That was a dog that didn't want attention. So what is the other half of the story? Most of the time, if we've got this dog coming into your space, loose, wiggly, and they roll over, this is, "I want affection." But there's one thing I just want you to keep an eye on. This is a dog here we've looked at quite a lot. She's a bit of an anxious dog. She is rolling over, and I give her space, and she does come back into my space. Wanting more attention. This is still a dog wanting attention, but it's with that mindset of, please give me attention, I'm no threat, I just want love. I'm not saying don't give that dog attention, but what I am saying is don't overlook this and just think the dog is comfortable. She is a bit anxious, so it's still a dog we still need to be a little bit cautious with. Basically, it's easy to overwhelm these dogs, so don't go flipping nuts. Give them a little bit of love, give them a bit of space. If they want more, Cool. So to make this easy, these are the things we look for. If they roll away from you and they are still, leave the dog alone. If they roll over or come towards you and roll over and they're wiggly, they want that attention. That's it. Now you're probably wondering, Max, in social situations when my dog chooses to sit down and stop, what does that mean? Well, that's what we're looking at tomorrow.
