Dogs and fear: how our loyal friend smells the emotions!

Dogs and fear: how our loyal friend smells the emotions!

A current study by the "Domestication Lab" at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Comparative Behavioral Research (Klivv) of the Veterinary University of Vienna shows that dogs have remarkable skills to perceive human emotions. Small newspaper reports that the study in the specialist magazine "Frontiers in Veterinary Science" was published and the aim of the goal was to measure the reaction of dogs to the sweat of fear without the anxious person being present.

Earlier observations have already shown that dogs show an avoidance behavior towards fear smells. However, the results of this study were not clear: While some dogs were hesitant in the presence of the smell by lowering their cocks or needed longer to approach the samples, there were also dogs that approached the samples with fear smell faster than neutral. This indicates that there is no uniform pattern in the behavior of the dogs.

Influences on the behavior of dogs

How All around. Explained in detail, dogs are able to smell fear. This ability is based on the highly developed olfactory skills of the animals that have around 220 million olfactory cells - compared to only 5 million in humans. In fear, the human body releases chemical compounds such as adrenaline and cortisol, which change body odor, which can perceive dogs.

These impressive sensory skills enable dogs not only to recognize human emotions, but also to interpret changes in the body language and behavior of their surroundings. Dogs react to subtle physical signs of fear, such as increased heart rate or changed breathing. Due to their specific training, therapy and rescue dogs in particular are particularly clever in recognizing emotional conditions. Your reactions can range from consolation behavior to increased protection behavior.

Social cognition in dogs

Another aspect that influences the behavior of dogs is their social cognition. A study by a team of researchers from the University of Vienna has shown that dogs and people have been closely linked for at least 15,000 years and can also communicate non -verbally. Loud Research and knowledge Recognize dogs of human facial expressions and can even identify faces of familiar people in photos.

The research work on neuronal processing in the dog brain shows that specific brain regions are activated when dogs look at lively objects such as faces or bodies. These findings indicate that dogs process body language to interpret intentions and emotional conditions. In addition, when looking at images, not only areas for body awareness, but also those for odor perception are active, which illustrates the link between seen and smelled and smelled.

Overall, these studies show that the behavior of dogs in response to fear of fear and their ability to recognize emotions are complex and complex. Further research is necessary to better understand this variability and to further deepen the human-dog relationship.