2024-07-22 09:18:36
Many dog owners worry that their pet understands their behavior. And many studies have concluded that, indeed, dogs have an incomparable ability to read human emotions after thousands of years of coexistence. The new work carried out by researchers at the University of Bristol not only confirms this, but goes a step further and confirms that this ability changes the emotions of the animal body. An “emotional crisis” occurs.
According to the group this Monday in the magazine ‘Scientific Report’, When the dog notices his master’s stress, he makes more “hopeful” decisions, as if he expects less from life. The study is the first to ascertain how human stressors affect the learning and emotional state of dogs.
Previous reports suggest that the smell of a stressed person spontaneously affects the emotions and decisions made by those around them. Researchers at Bristol Veterinary School want to find out if the same thing happens to dogs. To do this, they used the “hope” or “hope” test in animals, which is based on the finding that people’s “hope” or “hope” choices indicate positive or negative emotions, respectively.
Will there be a cure?
The researchers recruited 18 dog-owner pairs to participate in a series of experiments with different human smells. There are 18 dogs between eight months and ten years old and the breeds range from Cocker Spaniel, Labrador Retriever or Miniature Poodle to mixed breed dogs. During the experiment, the animals were trained to know that when a food container was placed in one place, there was a treat in it, but when it was placed in another place, it was empty. Once a dog learns the difference between these container locations, it is quicker to approach the location with a treat than the empty location. The researchers then tested how quickly the dog approached the boxes in new, and therefore neutral, positions between the two originals.
The fast path indicates “hope” about finding food in these unpleasant situations (indicating a positive emotional state), while the slow path indicates “hope” and negative emotion. These tests are repeated while each dog is exposed to the smell or odors from human breath and sweat samples in a stressful (while solving a math test) or in a relaxed (listening to sounds) situation.
The researchers found that the stressful sleep made the dogs approach the neutral bowl closer to the trained empty bowl more slowly, an effect not observed with rested sleep. These findings suggest that the stressful smell may have increased the dogs’ expectations that this new location would not contain food, like the nearby empty bowl location.
Researchers suggest that this “hopeful” response reflects a negative emotional state and may be a way for the dog to conserve energy and avoid depression.
“Understanding how human stress affects the health of dogs is important advice for dogs in kennels and when training companion dogs and for work roles such as assistance,” says Nicola Rooney, Senior Lecturer in Wildlife and Care is the Faculty of Bristol Veterinary Medicine and lead author of the article.
“Dog owners know how their pets are with their emotions, but here we show that even the smell of a stressful, unfamiliar person affects the dog’s emotional state, the perception of rewards and its ability to learn. “Working dog trainers often describe stress that spreads through the leash, but we have also shown that it can travel through the air,” he said.
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