Is a yawn always a calming signal?

No. A sleepy yawn on the sofa is just a yawn. It reads as a stress signal when it shows up in a busy or tense moment, especially next to a lip lick, a turn away or a freeze. One signal is a comma; a cluster in the wrong moment is the sentence.

Who came up with the term “calming signals”?

Norwegian trainer Turid Rugaas, who spent years watching dogs defuse tension with small, deliberate gestures. Today most of these behaviours are read first as signs of stress or discomfort; whether they actively calm anyone else is still debated.

What should I do when my dog shows a calming signal?

Pause and take the pressure off. Give space from the person, dog or situation, let your dog choose the distance, and never correct the signal itself: a dog punished for the quiet warning simply stops giving it.

What is the difference between calming signals and displacement behaviors?

They overlap a lot. Displacement behaviors are ordinary actions, like scratching, sniffing or shaking off, done out of context because a dog feels conflicted or uncomfortable. Many calming signals are exactly that. The practical meaning for you is the same: something in this moment is a bit too much.

Can I use calming signals to calm my dog down?

To a degree, yes. Turning side-on, softening your gaze, slowing down, yawning and approaching in a curve can help a nervous dog relax around you. They work best alongside giving the dog space, not as a substitute for it.

Do all dogs use calming signals the same way?

Every dog uses them, but each dog has favorites, and some are harder to see on certain breeds. Flat-faced dogs, heavily coated dogs and dogs with docked tails can be trickier to read, so it pays to learn your own dog’s usual repertoire.

Dog Calming Signals: How to Tell When Your Dog Is Stressed

By the humans behind Nicole & Nora · Published 2026-06-27 · Updated 2026-10-10

A yawn is not always a yawn.

New to reading dogs? Start with The Beginner's Guide to Dog Body Language: the whole dog, part by part, with interactive examples.

Sometimes it is your dog, very politely, telling you they have had enough. Not tired. Not bored. Just quietly asking for a little room before things get loud.

Dogs are talking to us constantly. They are just doing it in a language most of us were never handed a dictionary for. The signals are small, easy to miss, and almost always sent well before the growl or the snap that people actually notice.

Learn to read the small ones, and you rarely meet the big ones.

What "calming signals" really are

The term comes from Norwegian trainer Turid Rugaas, who spent years watching dogs defuse tension with tiny, deliberate gestures. She called them calming signals, the idea being that a dog uses them to settle itself and to ask another dog, or a person, to ease off.

The modern reading is a touch more honest. Most of these behaviors are signs of stress or discomfort first. Whether they actively calm anyone else is still up for debate. Your dog yawning at the vet is not running a negotiation. They are uncomfortable, and it is leaking out.

Which is the useful part for you. You do not need to settle the science. You just need to notice the signal and understand what it means: this is a bit much right now.

The signals worth watching for

None of these mean much on their own. A dog sniffing the grass is usually just a dog enjoying the grass. It is the wrong moment, or two or three of these stacking up together, that turns a shrug into a sentence.

The yawn with no nap in sight. A slow, stretched yawn in a busy or tense moment, not a sleepy one on the sofa.
The lip lick with no snack around. A quick flick of the tongue when there is no food in play. One of the most common, and most missed. (More on that in our lip licking piece.)
The turn away. Head or whole body swiveling from whatever is happening. A dog creating distance without moving their feet.
The sudden ground sniff. Nose down out of nowhere, mid-approach or mid-greeting. Often a polite way to say "I would like this to slow down."
The shake-off when they are dry. That full-body shimmy you see after a bath, happening when there is no water to fling. A little reset.
The freeze. A dog going still and quiet. The one people mistake for "he's being good." Stillness can be a dog holding its breath.
The whale eye. A half-moon of white at the corner of the eye as they glance sideways. We wrote a whole guide to whale eye, because it matters.

Context is the whole game

Here is where most advice online falls apart. It hands you a checklist and sends you off to diagnose a crisis every time your dog blinks.

One signal is a comma, not an alarm. What you are reading for is the cluster and the setting. A yawn on a quiet morning is a yawn. The same yawn when a stranger leans in for a hug, followed by a lip lick and a slow lean away, is a full paragraph, and the paragraph says please, not like this.

Nora will yawn theatrically the second a stranger crouches down to say hello. Every time. It is not fatigue. It is a very small dog with a very clear opinion.

More calming signals that are easy to miss

Turid Rugaas described around thirty of these signals in her book On Talking Terms with Dogs. The seven above are the ones you will see most. These are the quieter ones that tend to slip past even attentive owners:

Slow motion. A dog who suddenly walks as if through syrup, or takes forever to come when called in a tense moment, is often slowing things down on purpose, not ignoring you.
The curve. Dogs who are comfortable with each other rarely walk straight at one another. A wide, curving approach is good manners in dog. A dog who arcs around you, or another dog, is being polite.
Sitting or lying down, unasked. Dropping into a sit or a down in the middle of a greeting or a busy moment can be a way of taking the heat out of it.
Splitting. Walking between two dogs, or between a dog and a person, to break up an interaction that is getting too intense.
Softening the eyes. Narrowing the eyes and blinking slowly, especially when someone stares at them.
The paw lift. One front paw raised and held, often with a lowered head. Usually uncertainty, a dog pausing to decide.
Sudden scratching. A quick scratch at the collar or ear when nothing itches is often the canine version of fidgeting.

Calming signal, or just a dog being a dog?

Almost every one of these behaviors has an everyday, boring explanation too. The trick is to check the context before you read meaning into it.

Signal	Usually nothing more than	Worth noticing when
Yawn	Waking up, settling for a nap	It happens during a hug, a vet visit, a tense greeting or a telling-off
Lip or nose lick	Food, a treat nearby, a drink	No food is around, and it comes as someone leans over or reaches in
Sniffing the ground	A good smell on a walk	The nose drops suddenly as another dog or a stranger approaches
Turning away	Something more interesting elsewhere	The head turns away while the body stays still or leans back
Shake-off	Coming out of the water	The dog is dry, and it follows a greeting, a scuffle or handling
Sitting or lying down	Tiredness, waiting for a treat	It happens mid-greeting or mid-play, and the dog then goes quiet and still
Scratching	An actual itch	It starts the moment pressure goes up and stops when it goes down

If a signal shows up again and again in the same situation, that situation is your dog's sore spot. That is the useful information.

How calming signals fit into the bigger picture

Vet behaviorist Kendal Shepherd drew a well-known "ladder of aggression" to show how a dog's communication escalates when the quiet signals are ignored. It is a good mental picture to keep:

The whispers: yawning, blinking, nose licking.
Turning away: head, then body.
Moving away: walking off, crouching, tail tucked, ears back.
Freezing and staring: the body goes still and stiff.
The warnings: a growl, a lifted lip.
The last resort: a snap, then a bite.

Calming signals live on the bottom rungs. Every one you respond to is a step your dog never has to climb. And a dog who has learned that the bottom rungs do not work can skip straight to the top. That is the dog people describe as "biting out of nowhere." It almost never was nowhere. You can read more about the top of the ladder in what it means when a dog growls and the signs a dog is about to bite.

Calming signals and children

Children are, through no fault of their own, the people most likely to miss calming signals. They move fast, they hug, they lean over, they put their faces close. And dogs aim a lot of their politest signals at them.

Teach the "turn away" rule. If the dog turns its head away, licks its lips or yawns, the game pauses and the child steps back.
Let the dog come to them. A child who sits quietly and lets the dog approach gets far more relaxed attention than one who chases.
No hugs, no faces. Stroking the chest or the side of the neck is fine for most dogs. Hugs and face-to-face cuddles are where most warning signals appear.
Give the dog an escape route. A bed or crate in a quiet corner that children do not follow the dog into.

You can use calming signals too

Rugaas's most practical idea is that people can borrow some of this language to put a nervous dog at ease. It is not magic, but it does help:

Turn your body side-on instead of facing a worried dog head-on.
Look away, blink, soften your gaze rather than staring.
Slow everything down: your walk, your hands, your voice.
Approach in a curve, not in a straight line, and stop short to let the dog decide.
Crouch sideways at a distance instead of looming over a small or shy dog.

Most dogs read this instantly. It is the human equivalent of lowering your voice.

A one-week noticing exercise

For one week, every time you see a yawn, lip lick, turn away, sniff or shake-off that does not have an obvious ordinary reason, jot down three things: what happened just before, who was there, and what your dog did next. A notes app is enough. By the end of the week most people find two or three situations that come up again and again: a certain visitor, the harness going on, the walk past one particular house. Those are the places to make things easier for your dog first.

What to do the moment you spot one

The move is almost always the same, and almost always the opposite of what our instinct suggests. We tend to push through. Your dog is asking you to pause.

Give them room. Take the pressure off, whether that is the stranger, the other dog, the doorway, the hug. Let them choose the distance. And do not correct the signal itself, because a dog punished for the quiet warning simply stops giving it, and then you are left with only the loud one.

Then, when they settle, notice what set it off. That note is worth more than any checklist. It is the start of actually knowing your dog.

The dog is almost never being difficult. They are usually being loud in a language we never bothered to learn.

Keep going: learn what your dog's tail is really telling you, and if you want all of these signals on one page, grab our free Dog Body Language Cheat Sheet. 🐾

Everything here is meant to help you understand your dog, never to replace your vet. A sudden change in behavior can have a medical root, so if something feels off, start there.