When I was younger I always felt that my dog was part of the family. If any of us were sad or not feeling like ourselves she would be by our side comforting us. This made me wonder, can dogs really sense when we are sad? I always thought dogs had a sixth sense of being able to tell a human’s emotions. University of London researchers did a study on this topic in 2012.
Jennifer Mayer conducted this study in which 18 dogs and their owners agreed to participate. The dogs were a mix of mutts, labradors, and golden retrievers (Pappas). The study took place in each other owner’s living rooms. When Mayer entered the house she would pay no attention to the dog so it would not be interested in her. Then, Mayer and the owner would take turns being the cryer and the hummer. One person would pretend to fake cry while the other would hum. They took turns to make sure that the results could not show the dogs only going to their owners or only to Mayer. 15 out of the 18 dogs went to whoever was crying (Pappas). Out of those 15, “13 did so with submissive body language, such as tucked tails and bowed heads, another behavior consistent with empathy” (Pappas).
Working with animals is difficult because there is no way to get a definitive answer on what they were thinking. With such a small study like this it is hard to say that the results are definitely true. It was an experimental study but there is always a possibility that the results could be due to chance. We can rule out reverse causation which would be that the dog came to the person causing them to cry. So these results are either true, a false positive, or due to chance.
Dogs could have some sort of attraction to tears and crying, but in my opinion, dogs seem to have empathy for their owners. Crying humans provokes a very strong response in dogs. There is a relationship that is formed and dogs are extremely comforting. No matter what the reason is for dogs comforting their owners, I absolutely love that they do! We will never know, but maybe dogs are even more like humans than we thought! No matter what, a few minutes with a dog can turn my day around!
Sources:
Pappas, Stephanie. “Canine Comfort: Do Dogs Know When You’re Sad?”LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 07 June 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
“Dogs Naturally Want to Comfort People Who Are Upset.” DogHeirs. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Every time I’m in a bad mood it seems like my dog knows I’m upset and tries to cheer me up. I think dogs recognize emotion because when they do something wrong and get yelled at, their ears fold back, their tails end up in between their legs, and they slowly walk over as if they know there’s a problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if dogs knew we were sad, they’re extremely intelligent!
This just reminded me of my dog back home and I miss her dearly! I have always thought this as well because I do believe dogs can sense emotions from humans, just like they can when they know they’re in trouble. From my experience with my dog, once she peed inside the house and I yelled at her action. She hunched over and her tail curled underneath her body. Dogs are companions to almost all people and I think that the dogs realize that. Especially with my dog, since she is a Australian Sheep dog, she has protective instincts. Which is why that most of my friends don’t like her because she barks way too much. With this study, I do think that they should of opened the test up to other breeds of dogs and tried more times to see if chance really is a factor.
I absolutely love dogs. When you mentioned that dogs have a sixth sense of knowing human emotion, I agree with you. From the study, I find it amazing that 15 out of the 18 dogs went to the person that’s crying. Even though this is a very convincing result that showed dogs understood emotion, it is very hard to test the accuracy due to the small sample size of the dogs. Also, like you said, we can’t get a definite answer because of the difficulties of working with animals. However, even if results showed dog couldn’t detect our emotions, it still wouldn’t change the way I feel about them. Good job on the blog post!
I really liked your post because I always thought my dog knew when I was sad. He would come and cuddle with me until he thought I was happy again. I think that dogs have this emotional connection to the people that it lives with because the dog senses that someone is mad or something is wrong you notice a change in them too. They become anxious and irritable. It’s also been said that dogs know when you’re sad because of the tone of your voice, and the way you treat them. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/your-dog-can-tell-from-your-voice-if-youre-happy-or-sad-180949807/?no-ist