Does My Dog Know What I’m Thinking?
If you’re a dog person it’s probably quite obvious to you how adept dogs are at sensing and responding to our emotions, usually without us having to say a word. What gives dogs this special ability? There are several factors that make our canine companions experts at reading our mood.
These include:
Natural Ability to Interpret Body Language
Superior Hearing Capabilities
Heightened Sense of Smell
Body Language
Dogs are constantly assessing one another’s body language as well as our own. Given that most studies suggest that at least 50% of human communication is through body language this gives our pups quite an advantage. This attention to body language gives our furry friends deep insight into what we’re feeling. If we have an angry look on our face….a furrowed brow, scrunched nose, pursed lips… and are waving our arms around; you better believe our pup knows we’re angry and will likely keep his distance until we cool off.
Conversely if we’re sitting on the couch with slumped shoulders, looking downward with a blank stare, it’s no surprise that our dog will come to lay by us or even put her paw on our legs or hands to offer comfort. In this case our dog senses our sadness.
Superior Hearing
Dogs have a much greater sense of hearing than our own. Additionally, they are very sensitive to what tone of voice we are using and associating this tone with what emotional state we’re currently in. Greeting our dog with high pitched baby talk is going to elicit a very excited welcome home from our canine companion. She’ll be excited and enticed by the high pitch and happiness conveyed by our tone of voice.
Conversely, this is why I tell my Pet Parents to refrain from yelling at their dogs. Yelling is not a solution. It serves to either scare your dog or in some cases to be seen as a challenge (this can escalate a situation and result in an aggressive response). In either case the dog is reading your vocal tone and thus your state of mind.
Being that our dog’s sense of hearing is so much greater than our own it is also quite likely that they can hear our heartbeat. We’ve all heard that dogs can sense fear. Well this would be one sure fire way to figure out if we’re scared. If a dog already senses hesitancy in our movements and then hears an increased heart rate he will know we are uneasy and likely frightened.
The opposite is also true. A dog who observes clam posture and hears a slow and even heartbeat will not sense us as any sort of threat.
Heightened Sense of Smell
Dogs, unlike humans, very much experience the world through their nose. Dogs mark their territory as a means of leaving their scent. Dogs can smell hormonal changes in one another which tells them when it’s time to mate.
In humans they can even smell our emotions! A study was conducted in which a dog was given sweat samples to smell that were collected from a human and to then interact with that person.
There were 2 sweat samples:
Sample 1 was collected while the human was in a happy and pleasant mood
Sample 2 was collected while the human was scared and anxious
The experiment showed that dogs responded favorably and engaged with the human that was associated with the “smell of happiness.” While the “smell of fear” put our canine companions on edge.
Final Thought
Dogs have the ability to read our emotions in various ways and through senses far greater than our own. This makes dogs extremely receptive to our emotions. Always do your best to have calm and pleasant interactions with your pup. The more we can be the calm we want our dogs to mirror the more emotionally stable dog we will have.
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