Can Dogs Read Our Emotions?

Most dog owners will emphatically say that yes

, their dogs can sense their emotional state, but scientists on the whole disagree. While scientists accept that animals experience primary emotions such as fear, anger and anxiety, they are less willing to accept that animals can display feelings or empathy or secondary emotions such as jealousy.

If you've owned a dog you may have noticed that when you're feeling sad your dog may interact with you differently. Some dogs will approach their owners with an anxious look as if they are worried about them in some way. Some dogs will lick their owner's tears and cynics dismiss this by claiming that dogs like the salty taste of tears.

Dogs that are aggressive will most often attack people who are afraid of them. Dogs seem to feel fear and respond to it.

Dogs will often leave the scene if "their" humans are fighting among themselves. People who own dogs will sometimes lower their voices when having an argument to reduce the stress their dog seems to suffer from during their arguments but this has no effect, the dog may still slink away or hide. This proves that it is not simply the loudness of an argument that causes the dog stress.

If you've ever come home to a dog who's had an accident on the carpet or who has chewed your house apart, you'll notice the dog acting in a guilty way or hiding in the corner. Cynics explain this by saying the dog knows he will be punished and so he shows some fear by acting submissively. The problem with this theory is that some people don't punish their dogs and still get this guilty expression from their dog when it has done something wrong.

Some dogs even show something similar to jealousy when their humans kiss or hug each other. Some dogs will squeeze themselves between the lovey dovey couple in an attempt to separate them. Some dogs will even paw, push and shove their way between their owner and the object of their affection and it really does seem like the dog is acting jealously. Of course cynics also have an explanation for this and they claim that dogs view their owners as possessions and that this type of behavior is simply an expression of their possessiveness.

While the majority of dog owners feel their dogs can pick up on their emotions and there are numerous examples that this may be the case, there is no scientific evidence to prove this as yet. Perhaps one day we will have a way of measuring emotions in animals, but until then, we will have to make do with what we can deduce.

Can Dogs Read Our Emotions?

By: Wes Singer

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