Originally published at: What's up with that adorable head tilt that dogs do? | Boing Boing
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Reboing
Re(lated) boing
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Every cat person would love to own a tiger, but since they typically come equipped with the tools and intent to commit murder, we opt for the smaller, more friendly variant instead.
Every cat person? Uh no, this cat (and dog) person does not want to live with a giant, dangerous animal.
You can get plenty of attention online without resorting to distracting, overreaching, and nearly always false or subjective statements about everyone, no one, everything, everywhere, best of all time, and so on.
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Everyone loves hyperbole!
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Interesting video. And it suggests another (gormless) question: What’s up with humans hand gestures while they talk? (that is, this guy does it a lot) It doesn’t seem to be statistically illustrative of the spoken concepts. (ok, if the words are something like “all such things” then the arms generally open wider) Personally i’ve always thought we’re conducting an ‘orchestra’ of the cadence of our sequential thoughts …there: proof by blatant assertion.
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Keep in mind videos like that are garbage, informationally. The “science” being quoted is an online survey of very small sample size with terrible controls done by a blogger.
While there is no hard science on this yet, the simplest explanation is that they do it because we bred them to (perhaps unconsciously) because we think it’s cute. These are domesticated animals, not subject to natural selection for millennia. Everything they do was bred into them consciously or otherwise by us. If you’re breeding hunting dogs and they’re both pretty good, but one does an adorable head tilt when you make a funny noise? Guess which one is getting bred.
Don’t get your science from YouTube.
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Nobody wants a pet tiger!
Fwiw this cat person (I guess, no pets) just wants tigers to exist in the wild and thrive… somewhere.
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OMG, the cost of cat food and kitty litter (or whatever tiger poop disposal method) would be through the roof.
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Another explanation, which is more convincing to me, is that a straight stare may be confrontational; but the head tilt modifies ‘I am paying close attention to you’ with ‘…but I still don’t understand’.
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This is now my favourite gif in the history of the world 
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With Ruby, my mini-Schnauzer, I think she tilts her head to one side or the other so that both brain cells are closer together.
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Maybe they teach this somewhere. I mean, I’ve known plenty of people who gesticulate while they speak. But there seems to be an official “presentation” style of hand gestures used by on-screen personalities speaking to the camera. Most notable are Joe Namath and Jimmy J.J. Walker in their Medicare Advantage commercials. I swear they both studied at the same Hand Gesture Academy.
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Side by side eyes are good for tracking lateral motion, but tilting the head allows them to track the vertical motion of a biped bending down to scratch them on the head, and puts their head in the most convenient position for said biped whose fingers naturally bends sideways. I don’t know if this is true, but would be cuter than the other baseless explanations.
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All the meat involved in feeding a LARGE obligate carnivore gets pretty expensive too…And you REALLY want your large apex predator to NOT be suffering hunger pangs…
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This cat person loves the fact his little furry murderbeasts are too small to consider me prey and finds their attempt to eat me adorable at this stage. As I have said numerous times the fundamental difference between cats and dogs is that: a 75 pound dog is a St. Bernard. A big lovable loyal pet. A 75 pound cat is a leopard. An animal which will kill and eat you at the first opportunity.
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There are also so many delivery people, missionaries and real estate agents you can feed your pet tiger before neighbors start to take notice.
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