I think it's admirable that you are concerned about this. And I think you are doing fine.
I have a fluffy dog with floppy ears that have long hairs on them, and his ears, while definitely in the repertoire of expressions, are not the thing I most count on for communication. As opposed to another dog I have with standup ears, whose ears are highly expressive. With the fluffy dog, it's his eyes that tell me everything. Keep in mind that I have lived closely with the fluffy dog for almost 13 years, and I know him very well. All he has to do is look at me and I know exactly what he needs or wants. This is what you have to look forward to, because you will develop that with Nina. And even if she isn't exuberant with her tail, you will learn what each little twitch means in time.

If Nina is not licking her lips or yawning or these other things, it means she doesn't need to do those things to relieve stress, and that's a good thing. Also, remember that she is still a baby, and babies of all kinds are not as good at communication as older kids or adults are. And you are new at dog-ownership.

With as much attention and thought as you are putting into the raising of this little dog, you will not go wrong in learning her communication signals. What it sounds to me is that she's just a very happy and chill little girl, probably in part because that is her nature. And you can also take some credit for that; she is clearly a calm and happy dog because you have made sure her life is good and she feels protected, even in a crowd of people.

Just continue to observe her. She will be observing you. Together you'll learn your own interpersonal communication.

 

Thanks! I think we definitely still confuse each other to some degree. But a couple of times in the last few days, I’ve noticed that when she’s unsure, she does come right back to me. Before this, when scared or startled, she would bolt - in my general direction, for sure, but pulling me along and away by the lead. Now, I’ve noticed that she’s doing the middle position a lot, and just sitting quietly between my legs when she’s nervous. So, I think that’s a good sign.

However, she spends half her life cocking her head at me in confusion and I spend half my life looking at her, “sitting politely and waiting to get what I want” position, with no idea exactly what she’s expecting of me!

 

I'll add that your puppy class sounds excellent. But nobody ever knows your dog better than you. Trust your instincts - I think I said that already - they are good.

 

Thanks! I found it without taking the sensible step of asking my trainer, but luckily, when I told her about it, she said the group coordinator was a friend of hers. They seem to have very similar philosophies about reward-based training and so on.

 

It sounds like you got into a good class. I feel your pain regarding the difficulty of reading puppy signals. When I took Junior to his puppy class we got pretty much the same speech you did: look at the ears, the hackles, the angle of the tail, etc. The five poodle and doodle owners looked at our own little hairballs, looked at the other little hairballs, and then looked at each other with an expression of defeat. The one dachshund in the class was easy to read, but not because of his hair and ears. He was hiding behind his owner's chair and refused to come out. We all got that one right.

 

Amazing! It’s poodles and doodles. That explains everything.

I recently found a dog sitter with an extremely well mannered adult cavapoo actually, and was so excited, because of the thought that he may teach Nina how adult dogs behave. I was astounded and slightly disconcerted to hear what I thought were Nina’s puppy vocalisations and whimpers coming from this adult dog’s mouth… I think cavapoos may have realised we’re (humans are) rubbish at body language, and decided to just do it our way instead.