The most important part of your relationship with your dog is to understand its breed, as that will allow you to have much decided and confirmed information regarding the generic habits of your dog. After you have done your homework on understanding the characteristic nature of your dog by studying its breed you have to start the process in which both of you will build trust in each other or in relative terms trust building. Many people are aware that every dog is unique and has its own independent personality that you as the owner will have to understand and an effective method to achieve that is through communication with your dog. Unfortunately, dogs do not talk and this brings about a very big dilemma as some people are simply not as good as others when it comes to human animal relationships.

Now, the problem is how to understand your dog since that will be the first step towards your relationship with a dog and in order to have a successful communication, you both have to understand one another and the following are some general behavior patterns:

1. Aggressive: In the aggressive behavior the dog will have its ears forward with an upright tense body and an exposed jaw along with snarling, growling or barking.

2. Alert: In the alert behavior, the ears are turning to catch sounds, eyes wide open and the dog is on toes

3. Anxious: When dogs are anxious they generally have ears perked up with slightly-narrowed eyes, a tense posture and slightly lowered body

4. About to chase: Their ears are pointing forward with a wide-open mouth and legs in a position ready to run.

5. Curious or excited: Eyes are wide open, wagging tail or body, tiptoe perhaps even wriggling.

6. Dominant: Their ears are straightforward, tall posture and perhaps a low growl.

7. Fearful: Ears are laid back flat and low, averted eyes, crouched low, shivering or trembling with the tail down between knees.

8. Beginning stage of a flight: The ears are pulled back; eyes wide open, mount open, poised low, tense and may whine or yelp.

9. Friendly: Ears are perked up and eyes wide open, relaxed and open mouth, normal posture and playful

10. Guarding: Eyes are wide open with their ears forward, snapping teeth with a tense rigid body.

11. Playful & happy: Ears are forward and relaxed, wide-open eyes, relaxed mouth, wriggling, bouncing around while running back and forth and wagging tail vigorously.

12. Predatory: Alert, staring, body low down to the ground and quietly sniffing air.

13. Submissive: Ears are flat on head, eyes white showing and licking.

These are some general pointers to provide you with a guideline that is normal for all dogs and it will give you a good insight into the behavior of your dog so you could analyze if your dog has an unwanted behavior by this, you can being to rectify it by looking at the source and what causes it.