Dogs Can Smell Stress in Humans, Study Finds
New research out of the United Kingdom suggests that the smell of human stress affects dogs.
This is the first scientific evidence of human stress odors influencing emotion and learning in animals.
Dogs can smell whether a human is stressed or relaxed and will make behavioral decisions based on what they smell. Dogs experience emotional contagion from the smell of human stress leading them to make more mistakes on a learning task.
It's long been widely believed that dogs can detect extreme emotions by smell. For example, many people believe that dogs can tell when someone is afraid or angry. However, this is the first scientific evidence that dogs can smell stress in humans, and that this smell can affect their behavior.
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers recruited four dogs and their owners. The dogs were first exposed to the smell of stressed humans. The researchers then tested the dogs' ability to learn a new task. The dogs that had been exposed to the smell of stressed humans made more mistakes on the task than the dogs that had been exposed to the smell of relaxed humans.
The researchers believe that the smell of human stress may trigger a stress response in dogs. This stress response may then lead to changes in behavior, such as making more mistakes on a learning task.
The study provides new evidence that dogs are able to detect and respond to human emotions. This finding could have implications for how we train and interact with dogs.
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