I have this friend of mine who has been my best friend going on 2 years now. Anyhow, I've been noticing that he's constantly yawning all day long. Like he's really bored or he's just bored when he's around me.

I should mention my friend, my best friend, is my dog Cuervo. He's a husky/wolf mix. An absolutely beautiful dog who'll be celebrating his 2nd birthday in mid-April. We've had him since he was a 6 week old puppy and he's been a blast as an addition to our family, my girlfriend Christine & myself. He's smart, obedient, playful, everything anyone would love in a big dog. But I've noticed lately that he yawns all the time. And I mean constantly. Whats up with that?

He'll be moseying around the backyard yawning. He'll yawn when I call him. He yawns just to yawn I think sometimes. I once counted and he yawned 7 times in one minute. Thats 420 times in one hour if he maintains that pace! Assuming he might sleep 10 hours and not yawn while he's sleeping, that leaves 14 hours of yawning at 420 times an hour and the total is off the charts. He might yawn 5,880 times over the course of one 24 hour day. How can that be? Wouldn't his jaw hurt? If I ask him what the deal is with all the yawning, he'll just bark at me like the chatterbox he is like I'm going to understand what he's telling me. I can ask him anything in the form of a question and he'll answer back with a bark. So I'm still clueless.

I decided to look up some info to see if my yawning dog might have some kind of medical condition after all. Maybe he is really trying to tell me something in between his yawns when I ask him why he yawns all the time.

The info I could dig up on why a dog yawns all the time was rather generic from a number of different sources online. They say its a form of body language to avoid conflict. What conflict I wondered? My dog has it made in the shade. A dog will yawn as a calming signal to reduce stress and to console itself. Reduce stress? Our dog lives the life of royalty. He has free roam of our big backyard backed up to a large empty field, he has tons of toys, he even has his own couch he jumps on when he comes into the house. How can he be stressed? I don't think thats it.

One author even claims we should use these calming signals ourselves when communicating with our pets. How can I compete with a thousand yawns a day? Why would I want to? Then he might get a complex that he's boring me with all my yawning and I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. So I'll try not to take it to seriously about me boring him everytime he yawns. I'm bored to, but at least I don't constantly yawn in front of him.

Just as I finished writing this up, its like he knew. He jumped off his couch he was sleeping on, stretched and yawned twice, and then jabbed his nose into my arm and growled at me as if to tell me to quit telling everyone about his thousand yawns a day habit. C'mon Dad, I think he's saying between yawns, enough is enough.

Article written by Glenn J. Clawson from Eaton Rapids, Michigan. This is his first article he's submitted. Glenn has also built a website about his dog Cuervo that he frequently updates and it can be seen at http://www.CuervoRocks.com