Can my emotions affect my dog?

We've all noticed those moments when our canine companions seem to sense our mood. Whether we're excited, sad, or anxious, they always seem to know. The research highlights that dogs are incredibly sensitive to their owner’s emotional states, particularly stress, which can directly affect their performance and learning abilities. While we’ve known for years that dogs can pick up on our emotions, this study provides the first scientific evidence showing how human stress odours can influence a dog's emotional well-being and ability to learn. Emotional contagion - the transfer of emotions from one individual to another - isn’t just something humans experience. It turns out our dogs are just as susceptible, especially when their closest human companions are stressed. When a dog's performance declines, it’s important to consider how the human is feeling before addressing the dog’s behaviour. By managing our stress and being aware of our emotions, we not only improve our own well-being but also enhance our dog’s ability to learn and perform. The bond we share with our dogs is built on trust, clear communication, and, as this research shows, emotional exchange. As we navigate our daily stresses, it’s essential to remember that our dogs are along for the ride, picking up on both conscious and unconscious cues and reacting in ways we might not always realise.

Dogs, too, experience similar feelings of happiness, melancholy, stress, and fear like us. Because dogs are social animals, they seem to be in sync with their human owners. Dogs are expert body language readers, so while they may not know exactly what we mean when we vent to them about a bad day at work, they can pick up on our more subtle, non-verbal cues. Research into dogs’ ability to truly understand human emotions remains ongoing, but many of them support that dogs do understand our feelings and expressions. Dogs will often react in similar ways to how we are behaving, such as when we are excited or feeling sad. Even if dog's don’t know exactly why we’re sad, they can still recognize something is wrong and will often react to those feelings. In another study, it was shown that dogs will actually pick up on their owners’ stress levels over a long period of time. Mental Health Is Important For Both Of You. So, not only do dogs impact our mental health, but it seems like ours impact theirs as well. This is why it makes sense that your dog may “check in” on you when you’re upset and seems to celebrate with you when you’re feeling happy. Dogs feel all the feels with us.