Do dogs experience laughter?

[justasking]

Do dogs find things funny/experience laughter??

[wolf63]

Yes

1980 we got a bull-mastiff/GSD, he had a fantastic nature and was so gentle, but was built like a horse. A man used to walk a bunch of Afghan hounds past our house each day on a branch lead thing.

Hutch used to go and wait for them, sitting patiently in the gateway until they were passing our house. He let out a very loud and deep "boof" and sat down. The Afghans were running around like headless chickens, the leads all knotted and the guy near tears.

Hutch just sat and watched it all with a smirk on his face. Afterwards he would just go back into the house to plot some other fiendish plan.

Why the guy kept coming past our house and not by an alternative route is a mystery. He called our poor little innocent lots of bad names.

[spazvas]

He sounds a right little character!
I've often thought that dogs have a sense of humour, I swear they can smile.

[eyeshade]

wolf, they are so funny aren't they. What a beastie! If I had been watching I too would have laughed. My shar-pei turns upside down and exposes everything for everyone to see and I am sure he thinks this is funny. We say comments like "is that anyway for a boy to lay" and he does it all the more and you look at his eyes and they are looking out of the sides as much to say Ha Ha, you can't resist a tickle can you"!

I'm sure they laugh, just as much as they pick up on sad and not well.

[shaneystar2]

i think they do..Shaney loves to roll around on the lawn showing his particulars to all and sundry .His tongue hangs out of the side of his mouth and he appears to have a big cheesey grin on his face.

[Robinia]

I think they do too....I love wolf's story!

the KC spaniel I have now has the most expressive face I've ever seen on a dog, but my previous standard poodle was a complete clown. He did all his self-taught 'tricks' in a haphazard fashion because he knew we'd laugh....slippers would come flying through the air & the newspaper came one sheet at a time.
He used to love playing hide & seek - he'd sit for about 30 seconds if we were lucky while we all went off & hid in cupboards, behind furniture etc. & I swear he would laugh when he found us.

eyeshade is right about the sadness too. I only had to sniff once & he'd jump up & run to look at my face & if my sons were fighting he'd run outside & lie in the garden.

[maggie01]

I am sure they do. My oldest one's face really lights up when we go to the park and she looks like she has a smile on her face. She loves chasing cones and lying on them to have a scratch.

[RATTER15]

My dog laughs every time I send of for a tramp in the woods, Oh! how he laughs, the tramp is getting really p!ssed off though.

[fatmanlevi04]

I really do hope so, however i will not "pretend I am doctor Doolittle but check out a question from last week asking if they cry ??

[fatmanlevi04]

I hope so otherwise mine becomes deformed when he is happy lol x

[thugulike]

I had a rottie with an evil sense of humour many years ago. We then lived in a cottage which was right on the pavement. This cottage had long and low sash windows. One night Bron heard girls coming out of the pub, trip, trap, along the road in their high heels. They were obviously a bit drunk as you could hear them staggering. Bron waited at the open window until they were right underneath him and let out an enormous WOOOFFF. I heard one girl swear that she'd wet herself. Bron sat under the window sniggering like Muttley. We were in bed with our fists stuffed into our mouths. Dogs with a sense of humour? No doubt at all.

[Robinia]

brilliant thugulike!
.....bit like the time my I stood by the window for about 5 mins calling my dog in from the garden. I finally got mad when he ignored me & turned to go out & look for him & he was sitting right behind me -'laughing'! I nearly dropped out of my skin!!

[shaneystar2]

Brilliant stories.....Shaney is not allowed on the furniture ..but I have often gone out and left the sitting room door open and he is always up on the chair grinning at me through the window when I return as if to say ..ha ha ..got one over on you !!

[horselady]

A GSD we had many years ago had a wicked sense of humour. One Christmas Day, when us and the guests that had come for the day were slobbing about in the living room after dinner, out of the corner of my eye I saw the dog slope past the door with the turkey carcass in his mouth, covering the whole of the front of his face so he could hardly see where he was going. He'd pinched it off the worktop in the kitchen. I followed him to his favourite place in the porch and I swear he looked up at me with the biggest, daftest grin as if to say "aren't I clever, look what I've found"

[wolf63]

neither of my two mutts were much good when I was sad. One actually walked into a room when I was crying, he looked at me, sighed (loudly) and walked out the room again.

All these stories have been great, maybe we should get all the ab cat and dog stories together and write a book - for animal charity funds.

We all love our pets, but some people are not so kind and loving. I am pet-less at the moment, but that won't last.