Why do dogs tilt their heads? - Livescience.com

In a 2021 study in the journal Animal Cognition(opens in new tab), researchers in Hungary conducted the first scientific investigation of head-tilting in pooches.

"Head tilts in dogs are a fairly known behavior, but the most surprising thing for me was that no one before us investigated it," study lead author Andrea Sommese(opens in new tab), an ethologist (a scientist who studies natural animal behavior) at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, told Live Science.

In an earlier 2021 study in the journal Scientific Reports(opens in new tab), Sommese and his colleagues analyzed videos from around the globe in which dog owners asked their pets to fetch them a toy by saying its name.

While conducting the study that appeared in Scientific Reports, the researchers noticed that all 40 of the dogs cocked their heads during the tests.

They were part of a natural animal behavior study at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.

"Studies like this one are important because they remind us that we, as humans, also have a lot to learn about what a dog's body language is communicating to us," Udell told Live Science.