Owners of Fluffy Pets have often noticed that for some reason their dog barks loudly at passers-by. There were also cases when the dog caught up and grabbed a passerby’s leg. Such cases happen often, but out of 10 people for some reason the dog’s attention often stops only on one person. There has long been a lot of debate as to whether dogs feel fear in people. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not yet clear and precise. Dogs have a good sense of smell, and even some of them serve in the ranks of the police of our state, but whether it is true that they feel this unpleasant emotion in humans, we will discuss today.
Scheme of recognizing good and evil people by dogs
People in the world exchange information with each other through language, but unfortunately dogs do not possess such a tool as speech. Dogs are great “physiognomists” and will understand you perfectly without language. Zoopsychologists tell us that dogs communicate with each other by postures and movements and they also use these patterns to better recognize people. Scientists also say that the dog began living with humans about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and their genome has changed a bit since then. Most of the changes have occurred at the genetic level and it is the changes that are related to the behavior of the animal. This is why animals, and dogs in particular, have learned to see human emotions even though we don’t notice it.
After a lot of research, which was conducted by scientists, it turned out that dogs learned to notice the non-verbal movements of humans in ancient times. Dogs see human intentions when a person gives them away with facial muscle movements and changes in body postures. That is why when a dog sees a person from afar, sees the speed of movement, feels emotion, sees the pose, he immediately senses human joy, laughter, happiness, as well as fear and rage.
Journalists investigating this question interviewed a man who told them his life story. The man said that he had a collie dog that met him every evening from the train. The dog sat opposite the entrance to the yard and always rushed to meet him if his mood was good, positive, if he walked easily and without any baggage of “quarrels” that he carried from work. Fluffy would joyfully greet his master and happily jump for joy. Similarly, when the man was angry, not in the mood, or carried the baggage of “qu arrels “, the dog met him, but returned home without running to the owner, then the dog just ran into the yard and quietly sat down next to the fence. All cases of deception ended not as the person expected. There were cases when he deliberately walked at an accelerated pace, smiled and imitated joy with movements, jumping a little, but absolutely all these cases of deception the dog recognized and returned home without reaching the owner.
That’s why scientists are sure that a person for a dog is like an open space, they easily and unmistakably determine human joy, happiness, positivity, as well as dislike, anger and fear. They are like a scanner that reads everything on us. This scanner reads us with facial expressions, movements, postures, walking. Owners should also remember that dogs have a fairly sensitive olfactory organ, they understand all emotions, because emotions on the body are accompanied by a certain smell. Dogs clearly feel hormonal changes by smell, so do not try to deceive the dog, you will not succeed.
According to a 2018 study, the American journal Animal Cognition published information that scientists instructed retrievers to sniff samples taken from the armpits of men, after watching first scary and later funny videos. Scientists placed a box in a dark room, in the box made a special cut with a small hole and put the box in the room next to a stranger and the owner of the animal. It turned out that when the animal heard the odor from the happy person’s box, then the dog increased contact with the stranger who was standing next to the owner. When the dogs heard the odor from the box of a scared person, they reacted aggressively to the stranger who was standing next to the owner. Scientists tell us that some dogs behaved aggressively towards the person, some ran straight to the door or hid behind their owner.
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK also conducted a study to see if dogs feel human fear. Such a study was conducted with 4 dogs and 36 humans. The people were asked to volunteer to solve math problems and report their personal stress levels after completing the tasks. After completing the tasks presented, of course, that participants’ blood pressure and heart rate increased. Researchers and scientists immediately set about taking samples of people’s breath and sweat. All of these results were given to the dogs and they sniffed the test samples. The dogs gave 95% accurate and understandable results to the researchers regarding the stress levels of the participants.
The research conducted makes us realize that dogs are good at understanding and sensing chemical changes in the human body, they can sense the body after stress, meaning that “smell” is information to the dog. During stress in the human body there is always a release of adrenaline and cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing accelerates. This is exactly why the smell of breath and sweat changes and our Pets understand this 94%. If it is a pet dog, there is no threat to the owner. If it is a yard dog, which you met in the middle of the road and he barked, it is also nothing terrible, but remember that if you are afraid of dogs, it is better to avoid pedigree and aggressive dogs, and bypass the place of collision, so that such a dog feeling your fear did not cause bodily harm, scratches and bruises.
So, numerous studies show that humans create different smells due to sweat and stress, and dogs distinguish these smells and recognize the corresponding emotions. These studies make it clear to humans that dogs don’t need visual or audible cues to pick up on human stress. Therefore, we can confidently say that it is true that dogs can sense human fear. Often on the street you will encounter dogs that for some reason catch up to a certain person, may “pinch” a person’s leg, will bark fearfully at a person as for some unknown reason. This all happens precisely because the dog feels every emotion well, and especially fear and reacts to it by barking.
