Why does my dog yawn so much?

The sleepy yawn is the one you know. It comes late in the evening, on waking, or after a long day out, and it is loose and unhurried, often with a stretch or a circle into the bed. The stress yawn comes at a different moment. VCA's guide to stress, co-written by a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, says it is more prolonged and intense than a sleepy yawn, and it tends to appear when something is being asked of the dog or done to it.

Then there is the yawn of uncertainty: a dog given a cue it does not understand, or caught between wanting to approach and wanting to leave, may yawn as the tension peaks. Trainers often file this with displacement behaviors or calming signals, small actions that seem to release pressure or ask for it to ease. And some yawns are catching. Researchers have tested whether dogs pick up yawns from people, and some dogs clearly do, though why is still argued over.

The yawns worth acting on happen under pressure. Watch for them when a child hugs the dog, when a stranger bends over it to say hello, on the vet's table or the grooming table, in a crowded room, as an unfamiliar dog walks up, or when a training exercise jumps a step too far. The Collaborative for Shelter Dogs at Tufts' Cummings School lists yawning when not tired, lip licking when not hungry and panting when not hot among the fear and anxiety signals worth knowing.

Backing off is not giving in. It hands the dog a way to stay calm without needing the louder signals that come next: stiffening, a growl, a snap. VCA's advice for a stressed dog is to remove it from what is bothering it, find a quiet place and resist the urge to smother it with comfort. In practice that means stepping back, turning side-on, asking for something easy the dog knows well, or ending the moment altogether and trying again another day at an easier level.

Some of the yawn-heavy moments here come with the calendar. Downtown Gloucester and Bearskin Neck in July put a dog among crowds of strangers who want to pat it, St. Peter's Fiesta in late June and the July 3 fireworks fill the evenings with noise, and the off-season beaches put a leashed dog face to face with loose dogs it has never met. A dog that yawns its way along Main Street is not bored. Shorten the outing, choose a quieter street, or leave it at home with a frozen Kong.

In training, those places become the homework once the basics hold indoors. A bench at the edge of the Gloucester Dog Park at Stage Fort Park lets a worried dog watch people and dogs at a distance you control, and Good Harbor Beach is open to dogs on even-numbered days from October 1 to March 31 at the time of writing. Training enquiries go through the contact form, and the team replies within one hour on business days.