Why Does My Dog Whimper?
January 29, 2020
There’s something about the sound of a dog whimpering that just pulls at your heartstrings. If only they could speak and tell you what ails them.
But whimpering doesn’t always mean your dog is sad. It can mean other things like excitement and hunger.
As long as you rule out pain as the number one reason for your dog’s whimpering, that quivering, whiney sound is sure to get your attention, and your dog knows it.
So dogs use whimpering and different sounds to communicate with you and fulfill a need. Take my dog, for instance. She has a number of different whimpers that she uses to tell me something, and often there is a time-of-day element involved too.
Around seven o’clock every night, she will come and sit beside my chair and whimper in a melodic and rhythmic way until I stop what I’m doing and play with her. At around dinner time, she will emit a constant, high-pitched but barely audible whine from the couch that sounds like a whistling kettle. This is her reaction to our neighbours’ delicious cooking that I don’t often detect but reaches her long houndlike nose intact in all its flavours! And finally, there’s the persistent, staccato, almost shrill whimper that tells me she needs to go out immediately.
So you could say that your dog’s whimpers convey a need on an emotional, physical, and mental level. I need attention, I’m hungry, and I need some fresh air.
Of course, dogs will also whimper is they are scared or over-excited like when you get home, and some submissive dogs will whimper around their pack leaders or other dogs. These are behaviours you probably don’t want to encourage, so you could try some training techniques to instill calm and confidence within your pup.
Of course a guilty face that greets you at the door and whimpers is a sure sign your puppy has got into trouble while you were gone. So some calm reassurance is needed at this time. I mean, how bad could it be? Maybe something got broken, or chewed to shreds, or messes were made in the wrong corner. Try not to be too harsh. Dogs are such sensitive creatures, they react much more positively to a calm and assertive approach.
So whimpering is one way your dog will try to communicate with you. Try to see if you can recognize all of your dog's different whimpers so you can identify the underlying cause and keep them happy. A happy dog is a well-understood dog.