Your dog can sniff out your stress, a new breakthrough study finds

Dogs have an incredible sense of smell. They can sniff out infections, drugs, money, and a lot of other things. It is now scientifically proven that they can detect your stress too.

The first study of its kind

The Queen's University Belfast has conducted the first of its kind study that provided evidence that dogs do not need visual or audio cues to pick up on human stress and can smell it from breath and sweat alone.

The breakthrough research helps better understand the human-dog relationship and the way pooches interpret and interact with people depending on their emotional well-being.

The knowledge obtained by Queen's will be useful when training service and therapy dogs.

So, how did the scientists do it?

Treo, Fingal, Soot and Winnie

In the study, scientists collected samples of sweat and breath from 36 people before and after they undertook a hard maths problem, Daily Record writes. They all reported their stress levels before and after the task, and researchers only used samples where the person’s blood pressure and heart rate had increased.

Four dogs participating in the study – Treo, Fingal, Soot and Winnie - were taught how to search a scent line-up and alert researchers to the correct sample. During each session of testing, the pups were presented with one person's stressed and relaxed sample four minutes apart. Each pooch was able to correctly identify the stress sample.

Clara Wilson, a PhD student in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast, said:

The findings show that we, as humans, produce different smells through our sweat and breath when we are stressed and dogs can tell this apart from our smell when relaxed – even if it is someone they do not know.

‘Highly sensitive and intuitive animals’

Treo, a two-year-old cocker spaniel, enjoyed participating in the study. According to his owner, he was always excited to see the researchers at Queen’s and could find his own way to the lab.

His owner Helen Parks said:

As the owner of a dog that thrives on sniffing, we were delighted and curious to see Treo take part in the study.

Helen said that the study made her more aware of a dog’s ability to use their nose to ‘see’ the world. She also believes it developed her pooch’s ability to sense a change in emotion at home.

She commented:

The study reinforced for us that dogs are highly sensitive and intuitive animals and there is immense value in using what they do best – sniffing.

Sources used:

- Mirror: 'Dogs are able to smell when a person is feeling stressed, study finds'

- Daily Record: 'Dogs can smell when a human is stressed, according to new study'

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