# Facial expressions of dogs learned from humans?



## Uli (Dec 29, 2010)

A friend told me their German shepherd had learned to express feelings with his face from the owner´s family members. He said the dog learned to smile . I´m quite sure to be able to understand the facial expressions of our fox terrier but I´m not sure she learned those from us. Are dogs interested in our facial expressions? Can they understand them? Has anyone observed a dog imitating them?


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## Argent (Oct 18, 2009)

Dogs have evolved alongside humans and it has been proven that they have, to an extent, learnt our body language as a seperate thing from their own canine one. They read our faces like other people read each others, but won't look at another dog in the same way. I'm sure they do also try and imitate expressions seen from their families.
There was a documentary on the subject on BBC sometime last year "The Secret Life of Dogs" I think it was.


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## Uli (Dec 29, 2010)

Thanks, I´m going to see if there´s some information on the BBC website.


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