Long tagged as man’s best friend, research from the University of Bristol now finds that our four-legged companions are extremely empathetic to humans’ emotional states, specifically stress. Scientists have for the very first time assessed how human sweat odor caused by stress affects canine learning and emotional responses in a study published in Scientific Reports.
According to researchers, dogs, much like humans, alter their feelings and behavior concerning the odor of a smell associated with stress or relaxation. For this, they used 18 dog-owner pairs to know the effect of different types of human odor on canine behavior. Dogs had been trained to receive a treat at random locations of bowls. Their reactions to new bowl placements measured whether it was optimism or pessimism.
In the presence of stress odor, dogs are slower to approach new bowl locations, revealing a more ‘pessimistic’ attitude than in the presence of relaxed human odor, where dogs are quicker to inspect new bowls. The findings suggest that the stress odors make dogs less optimistic about finding food in new locations, perhaps as a strategy to avoid disappointment and conserve energy.
Dr Nicola Rooney, from Bristol Veterinary School, said that their research highlighted the need to know how human stress affects dogs, particularly in places like kennels and during training, but also when dogs are used for working. “Understanding how human stress affects dogs is important for their welfare,” she said.
The research even established that the scent of an unknown person who was under stress would affect the state of emotion, the perception of reward, and learning in a dog. According to one of the lead authors of this research, Dr. Zoe Parr-Cortes, the reason dogs have been responsive to owners’ moods, a phenomenon called “emotional contagion”, is that through thousands of years of evolution with humans, dogs learned to pick up on their owners’ emotions. That might have evolved to protect the dog from threats and to save its energy.
This research may have immense implications not only for professional dog handlers but also for regular dog owners. For example, if working dogs in extremely stressful roles, such as police work or search and rescue operations, were to understand human stress, it could make all the difference in the training and performance of those dogs. For the ordinary dog owner, keeping calm or involving the owner in calming activities before a training session can go a long way in changing the behavior of the dog positively.
Future research will be done to find out how other human emotions, such as happiness or deep relaxation, affect the mood of dogs. The present study opens up a vast array of possibilities for studying this deep emotional link between human beings and canine companions.
The results of the study reveal how deep the relationship between humans and dogs can be and prove that our emotional condition might seriously influence the behavior and welfare of our pets.