Can Dogs Tell If We Are Stressed, Depressed, or Overjoyed?

Being that April is National Stress Awareness Month I have been posting blogs regarding stress and health this week.

Here is another in the series.

You get angry at your dog and he gives you the classic hangdog, guilty look. He knows you're mad. So does that mean your dog can sense your emotions? The answer is not as clear. Your reaction made it clear you – the pack leader – are upset, and your dog is desperate to appease you (he probably doesn't know or care why you're angry).

But what if you're stressed or sad about something else, not involving your dog? He may sense something is wrong, but again, may not know why.

Examples of dogs sensing our emotions:

Almost every dog owner has found out that when they are really sad, their dog acts differently toward them. He may approach them with a concerned look and, quite out of character, hunker down next to them, presumably to provide some support. It is as if they are saying, "I know there's something wrong, I don't know what but I'm here for you anyway."


Fear-aggressive dogs are more often aggressive to people who fear them. By observation, they pick up from a person's demeanor that they are not comfortable and capitalize on their weakness. Perhaps it is because the person has a pained expression; perhaps because the person is a little tenuous; or perhaps the dog reads fear from the large diameter of the person's pupils. For whatever reason, under-confident dogs "know" when a person is afraid of them and will move forward on them, perhaps to attack.


Top trainer William (Bill) Campbell is well known for his "jolly routine" approach to treating fear in dogs. Most people think that this involves being jolly with your dog, but actually that's not so. The real jolly routine means that all the people in the house should behave in a happy, jolly manner with each other. The dog, sensing their apparent happiness, figures out that nothing bad is going to happen and relaxes. The fact that the technique works is testimony to the fact that dogs are influenced by our emotions and behavior. When we're "up," they're "up."


Many dogs slink away and hide or sulk when their human "parents" argue. A major fight between adults really seems to take its toll on some dogs who seem to know that there's trouble afoot. The appearance of the dog's behavior is as if he understands discord and does not want to be around it.


If an owner comes home and finds their home trashed by their dog, the guilty party will often be found hiding, perhaps with a hangdog look. Owners believe their dog is feeling guilty about what he has done and I tend to agree. If you accept the guilt explanation, you must also accept that the dog is projecting your feelings of disappointment or anger. Hard line behaviorists naturally would disagree with this interpretation, preferring to believe that the dog simply associates his owner, the damage, and his own presence with past punishment and acts submissively. This would be all fair and well, but there are dogs that have never been punished who still act in this way. Sure, their owners may have been disappointed and disheartened by the damage, but that's about it. The dogs must have read this disappointment because they sure weren't responding to punishment of any form.


Some naughty dogs do not appreciate their owners hugging or kissing each other. They seem to know that the people concerned are experiencing some pleasure and they want to be part of it. So, they try to leverage themselves into the situation by shoving, pushing, pawing, and jumping. This behavior looks like jealousy but many mainstream behaviorists disagree, preferring explanations like possessiveness, which sounds very similar to jealousy to me, or conflict-induced behavior, because the dog "cannot predict what will happen next."


Examples of dogs seemingly picking up on our emotions are endless but still the scientific proof is not there. The case against animals having the ability to glean our mood and mindset is based on lack of evidence to the effect that it happens rather than conclusive evidence to the contrary.

From an evolutionary point of view, it would be very strange if dogs did not have the ability to sense mood and that it suddenly occurred for the first and only time in the human animal. It would also not make sense to have a pack animal like a dog not realize when he was getting into trouble with another dog or when his behavior was having the desired effect. If dogs feel what we feel, then they would be happy when we're happy, sad when we're sad, and on the lookout (or hiding) when we're angry. All of the above appears to hold true.

Dogs Can Help Lower Blood Pressure

Because April is National Stress Awareness Month I have been posting blogs regarding stress and health.

Here is another in the series.

In a recent study, Allen, a researcher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found that stockbrokers with hypertension who adopted a cat or dog had lower blood pressure readings in stressful situations than did their non-pet-owning counterparts.

Allen and her colleagues conducted a study of 48 male and female stockbrokers who were being treated with medication to control high blood pressure. All earned more than $200,000 a year, had lived alone for at least the last 5 years and had highly stressful jobs.

Before the study began, researchers asked the participants to quickly count backward by 17 or try arguing their way out of a shoplifting charge.

During these exercises, blood pressure levels reached an average peak way above normal – even above what doctors generally consider "high" blood pressure.

Drug Prescribed at Start of Study

At the start of the study, the brokers were prescribed the anti-hypertension drug, lisinopril. Half of the participants were randomly selected to also get a dog or cat as a house pet. Six months later, Allen and her colleagues conducted tests in the participants' homes to measure changes in blood pressure. They found that stress-induced blood pressure continued to rise in the brokers without pets.

The brokers who owned pets also had stress-related rises in blood pressure, but these rises were only half as high as those seen in the petless group. The pet-owning brokers had average systolic pressures (the first number in a blood pressure reading) that fell within the normal healthy range. Stress-related peaks in diastolic pressure (the second number in a reading) were also reduced.

Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that while the drug lisinopril helped lower resting blood pressures, pet ownership is better at helping to control stress-induced peaks in blood pressure.

Following the study, many of the participants who did not have pets decided to acquire them, Allen said. "When we told the group that didn't have pets about the findings, many went out and got them," she said. "This study shows that if you have high blood pressure, a pet is very good for you when you're under stress, and pet ownership is especially good for you if you have a limited support system."

Allen is not certain exactly what happens physiologically. "There are lots of theories, but we honestly don't know why pets lower blood pressure," she said. "We suspect that having someone on your side - someone you can always count on that is non-judgmental - psychologically creates a beneficial atmosphere."

Dogs Can Help Us Deal with Stress

April is National Stress Awareness Month. I believe stress has always been around but it is somehow different now than it was years ago. Life moves at a faster pace. Adults and children are more aware. Many diseases are linked to "stress" and stress has been shown to shorten life expectancy.



Dogs can help up deal with stress.

Most dog owners would agree: On days when you feel depressed, hopeless, down, lonely, sad, discouraged, or just have the "blahs," spending time with a friendly dog can be a real pick-me-up.

Then there are the documented health benefits of pet ownership. Many studies have proven the link between a healthier, longer life and pet ownership. Though the studies have largely focused on the effects of dogs and cats, other species provide benefits as well. Keeping a pet can give you a sense of purpose and the feeling of being needed, a feeling that is especially important for people who live alone.

Coming home to your family, whether you have one pet or many, gives you something to look forward to.

"Watching your pet's silly antics can make you laugh and help relieve stress," says David Frei, spokesperson for the Delta Society, a nonprofit organization interested in relationships between people and animals. "Pets take away the tension that's in your daily life, whether it's for work or family-related problems. When you see a dog looking at you with his big, brown adoring eyes, that brings a certain relaxation to people."

Pets Decrease Feelings of Loneliness

Pets decrease feelings of loneliness and isolation, explains Alan Beck, Ph.D., director of the Center for Human-Animal Bond at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University. "A pet is someone to share your life with," he says. "There's a lot of people in this world who live alone. As a society, many of us live in apartments in big cities. We may not know our neighbors. We may be separated geographically from our extended families. Maybe we're divorced or widowed and live alone. For people in these circumstance, pets can help fill the 'people void' in their lives."

Many people relax by watching their fish as they swim serenely around a scenic aquarium. The multicolored hues can be mesmerizing and has a soothing effect. The same is true with a bird, reptile or amphibian.

Psychologist Judith Siegel, a professor of public health at UCLA, conducted a 1999 study showing how pets help one group of people in particular fight depression: male AIDS patients. "Pet ownership among men who have AIDS provides a certain level of companionship that helps them cope better with the stresses of their lives," Siegel says.

Dr. Siegel says her study, one of the largest ever undertaken on pet ownership and depression, shows "there really is something psychologically beneficial about owning and caring for a pet." The benefit is especially pronounced when people are strongly attached to their pets and have few close confidants, she adds.

"Pet ownership is not necessarily a substitute for human support," Dr. Siegel says, "but it's another way to express and receive love." And that may be just what it necessary to make a difficult situation a little more bearable.

Do Pets Get Stressed?

April is National Stress Awareness Month. I believe stress has always been around but it is somehow different now than it was years ago. Life moves at a faster pace. Adults and children are more aware. Many diseases are linked to "stress" and stress has been shown to shorten life expectancy.

So what about our pets? Do pets get stressed out, too?

YES! Stress affects pets, too.

Some pets are more stressed out than others - sort of like people. Different pets have different stress levels and, like us, they all handle stress in different ways. You can put two people in a similar situation - say a fender bender - the accident may send one of them over the edge while the other takes it as just another bump in the road.

Dogs are like that, too.

Some dogs are just innately "wound up" and very vulnerable to stress. Some are very in tune with their people. For these pets, our stress also stresses them out. Our pets pick up on our emotions and react to the chaos in our lives. When we're tense, they're tense.

So, how can we help our pets "distress"?


Interestingly, research shows that some music can actually soothe pets (just like music soothes people). Studies prove that music helps relax our pets and researchers have even pinpointed some very specific characteristics in the music that work best.

Some pet owners feel guilty about leaving their dog home alone so they leave the TV or radio on to keep the dog company. But studies show that this actually does more harm than good. Leaving the TV or radio on will certainly create "noise," but it won't necessarily create a relaxed environment for your dog. It can actually CREATE stress for our pets due to the drastic changes in programming content, volume level and the random mix of musical styles.

Dogs prefer classical music. Dogs will actually bark less - especially when they listen to the music of Bach. Classical harp music has been shown to help alleviate stress and heal sickness in cats, dogs, chimpanzees and other animals.

In recent pet anxiety studies, house pets responded favorably to classical music under stress-inducing situations, often slipping into a very serene and peaceful state of mind after only a few minutes of listening. Certain instruments and sounds were more effective than others. For the music to actually calm our pets, it must create a consistently smooth, soothing dynamic from start to finish. That means there should be no abrupt changes in tempo, volume or rhythm. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case with radio broadcasts.