Nowadays, the dog is a four-legged companion who brings us much joy. As one writer put it:“The dog is man’s best friend“. Indeed, it’s an animal that’s very loyal to its master.
We wonder whether our best friend, the dog, can sense our good or bad moods. Science has proven that dogs are intelligent animals, capable of interpreting and understanding emotions.
Victor Hugo also said“Look your dog in the eye and you won’t be able to affirm that he has no soul“.
Since 2015 and according to the new Civil Code, the animal is finally recognized as a living being endowed with sentience. In the European Union, the Lisbon Treaty was amended in 2008 to include a definition of animals as sentient beings.
As a result, just like humans, dogs feel emotions and can recognize basic and even secondary emotions. They are therefore capable of empathy towards their peers and also towards humans, and can perceive and understand emotions in others.
Do dogs perceive our emotions?
Dogs use their sense organs to sense our emotions:
Dogs recognize facial expressions through sight and brain. They often tend, like humans, to look at and observe the left side of our face to identify our mood. They also use their brains to decode our facial expressions.
- Dogs’ cognitive ability to identify human emotions Thanks to scientific and neurobiological research, we now have access to a better understanding of dogs’ cognitive abilities. This ability is due to the special relationship dogs have with their human masters. Indeed, they have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information, resulting in a coherent perception of human emotions. Dogs can tell our moods from our expressions and the intonations of our voices.
- They sense our emotions. We’re talking here about sensing in the sense of using the sense of smell, not in the sense of feeling through a mechanism of empathy.
A study carried out by researchers at the University of Naples has highlighted the importance of smells in detecting emotions. Indeed, dogs can use their keen sense of smell to detect odor signals in response to some of our emotions.
The different emotions dogs can feel
Dogs feel a whole range of our primary emotions, such as fear, joy, sadness, anger, disgust and surprise; and secondary emotions such as shame, contempt and hope. They can then feel both positive and negative emotions, and certainly also feel our love and affection for them.
Joy
Dogs know how to share and understand our joys. A happy, friendly dog is immediately obvious. Indeed, he can let you know by wagging his tail faster and faster, with his mouth ajar and appearing relaxed, or by barking loudly.
Anger
Dogs often tend to react to our stern or raised voice. So, if your dog’s gaze is fixed and intense, if his whole body is tense, if his ears are turned forward or back, if his lips are turned up or if he growls or barks loudly: no doubt, your dog is not happy at all!
Fear
Dogs can also sense our fear. They show this through a variety of attitudes. They may, for example, pin their ears back, dilate their pupils, wrinkle their muzzle, lower their body, look away or position their tail low or between their legs.
Sadness
Dogs can sense and interpret our sadness. Alphonse de Lamartine said:“Wherever there’s an unhappy person, God sends a dog“.
That’s why you may feel that your dog is consoling you when you’re sad.
Disgust
Our companions are well aware of what they like and what disgusts them. They can demonstrate and evoke this emotion with a withdrawn posture, an enlargement of their eyes with the appearance of the whites of their eyes, or by turning their heads away.
Finally, there are many other impressive qualities to be appreciated in dogs. They are truly intelligent pets, loyal to their master. They can interpret, understand and feel the emotions of those around them.
There’s no doubt about it: dogs are man’s best friend. They understand us so well!
