Have you ever seen a dog cringe and appear uncomfortable when an unfamiliar person reaches out to pet him?  There is a right way and a wrong way to interact with a dog in everyday situations and researchers have only recently explored the best way to greet your dog.  Now researchers are exploring what is the best way to pet and touch your dog.
A team of German researchers did a study on how dogs react to various forms of physical contact.  They studied video tapes of a stranger or unfamiliar person interacting with a dog while recording the dog’s heart rate at the same time, not only to determine the dog’s level of excitement but to also determine if the dog was responding positively or negatively and how the autonomic nervous system is involved.
For the experiment, 28 dogs averaging around five years of age, were used.  The dogs were privately owned in a variety of breeds, life histories, and did or did not have obedience training.  Once each test dog was fitted with a heart rate monitor, they were brought into an office-like space.  A stranger began interacting with the dog while its owner acted indifferently to what was transpiring.  The strangers were told that there were nine different ways in which the dogs could be touched; petting the dog on the shoulder, on the side of its chest, on the top part of its neck, on the top of its head, while being held in a down position on the floor, holding one of the dog’s front paws, scratching the upper part of the base of its tail, holding the dog by its collar, and covering the dog’s muzzle with one hand.
In the video recordings, the researchers focused on behaviors indicating stress or discomfort on the part of the dog such as freezing, withdrawing when touched, air licking, paw lifting, yawning, and the like.  When touched or being touched by the different types of physical contact, there was a large difference in the dog’s heart rate measures and behavioral responses.  It’s no surprise that physical contact involving restraint such as holding the dog down while petting it, holding the dog by the collar, or covering the dog’s muzzle with a hand, produced the most consistently negative responses.  The least negative response came from patting the dog on its head or when holding one of its paws.  Petting the dog’s chest or shoulder, or scratching the dog at the bottom of the spine just in front of the tail were the most favorable touches.
Keep in mind, these were responses from the dogs toward somebody they were not familiar with.  Dogs tolerate more from those who are familiar, friendly and a member of their family.  Though flank and side touches were not part of the experiment, it is assumed that they would not be tolerated if received from someone unfamiliar to them.
This study is a start toward understanding the ways in which various forms of physical contact we make with our dogs affects their emotional state and reinforces the importance of telling children that they should not pat an unfamiliar dog on the top of its head.