How Well Can We Understand the Feelings of Dogs?

As dog owners, we think very accurately to recognize the emotional state of our four-legged friends. But is it? And what factors affect how well we can decipher the emotions of dogs? New research sheds light on this.

The researchers worked with participants who had varying levels of experience with dogs – some had a dog, some lived in cultures where dogs are highly valued and often live with people, others did not. In addition to adults, children took part in the study.

Scientists have already proven that dogs can also communicate with their eyes and at least understand people’s intentions. In this case, the researchers wanted to find out if humans can see through the emotions of dogs.

They published their results in the journal “Nature”.

Study Participants Were Required to Recognize the Emotions of Dogs in Photographs

Participants viewed 20 photographs of dogs’ faces, with which they were asked to associate emotions. In addition, they were also shown 20 photographs each of chimpanzees and human faces. Four different species displayed joy/playfulness, sadness/stress, anger, fear, or neutral facial expressions.

Result: Participants recognized emotions such as joy or anger at a young age, regardless of whether they already had many personal contacts with dogs or not. In addition, some participants found it more difficult than others to correctly interpret the dog’s feelings.

When it came to human faces, the children interviewed were mostly right. However, it was equally difficult for them to read the faces of chimpanzees and dogs. The best performers were adult Europeans who either owned a dog or grew up in a dog-friendly culture.

Sensory Recognition in Dogs Varies by Culture

People from the Muslim culture, where dogs are less valuable, performed slightly worse. Thus, the researchers concluded that the ability to recognize the feelings of dogs depends on the cultural environment in which we grew up. This moment is more important than having a dog yourself.

The researchers hope to continue studying communication between dogs and humans to “reduce the number of harmful or negative incidents between humans and dogs.”