Can Dogs Sense Your Emotions?

The old wives' tale that dogs can detect fear is among the most popular remaining beliefs about dogs. In reality, dogs don't have magical abilities or a mysterious sixth sense that allows them to predict a person's emotions. Instead, they have more powerful senses of smell and hearing than people and, because they can't speak, more often rely on these senses to gain information about the world around them. As a result, they are frequently able to piece together clues about a person's emotions.

  1. Sense of Smell

    • A dog's sense of smell is its most powerful tool for gaining information about the world. Dogs can determine where someone has been recently, what they've eaten and who they've interacted with, all based on the trace smells they detect on a person. Any dog owner knows that dogs love to sniff their people as soon as they come home. Though knowing what people have been doing does not provide direct information about emotion, dogs can deduce some emotions based on a combination of smells, hormones and pheromones. For example, a dog who smells that a person has been at his mother's house and who also smells a stress hormone can deduce that the mother's house is stressful. Consequently, it may react fearfully or aggressively the next time it sees his owner's mother.

    Pheromones

    • Pheromones are chemicals that provide animals with information about another animal's emotions, state of mind or behavior. Both humans and dogs secrete pheromones and dogs are able to smell the pheromones of other dogs days after they've been secreted. Dogs can also detect human pheromones. Psychologist Alexandra Horowitz reports that scientists are unsure whether or not dogs can understand the messages carried on human pheromones but there is anecdotal data indicating that some dogs can. For example, service dogs trained to help people with epilepsy may be able to detect a pheromone released right before an epileptic has a seizure.

    Hormones

    • Much like pheromones, dogs can smell some hormones. Cortisol is a hormone associated with stress in both humans and dogs. Dogs can presumably detect stress in people because they secrete the same hormones as stressed dogs. Humans also release hormones associated with a variety of other factors including sexual arousal, anger, fear and illness or disease. Dogs may be able to understand the meaning of at least some of these hormones.

    Body Language

    • Both wolves and dogs exhibit complex body language. Tiny, almost imperceptible tail, eye and facial movements provide dogs with valuable clues about emotions and intentions. Because dogs can't speak, they are skilled readers of human body language. A dog may detect that a person is afraid or angry long before people notice. This is not because of a magical sixth sense but rather a result of keen powers of observation. Wolves who are good readers of body language are more likely to be pack leaders and smart dogs quickly become astute readers of body language.