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YES, YOUR DOG REALLY CAN SNIFF THAT YOU’RE UPSET


IN A NEW STUDY, THE DOGS TREO, WINNIE, FINGAL AND SOOT WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY
CHEMICAL ODORS PEOPLE EMIT WHEN STRESSED

By Marlene Cimons
October 11, 2022 at 5:58 a.m. EDT
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THIS VIDEO IS BEING VIEWED IN ANOTHER WINDOW


Soot, a female rescue dog, searched a selection of odors at Queen's University
Belfast and froze over the stress sample. (Video: Matt Donnelly / Queen's
University Belfast)
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Dogs see the world through their noses. Their exceptional ability to recognize
specific scents — vastly better than humans’ — helps them find bombs, guns,
drugs and human remains, and point to some diseases. Now a study has found that
dogs can do something just as remarkable: sniff out stress in people.



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The dogs were able to smell changes in human breath and sweat, and — with high
accuracy — identify chemical odors people emit when feeling stressed. The
findings provide “deeper knowledge of the human-dog relationship and adds to our
understanding of how dogs perceive and interact with human psychological
states,” said Clara Wilson. Wilson, a doctoral student in the Queen’s University
Belfast school of psychology, is one of the study authors.

Noting that earlier research using sniffer dogs and human biological samples
mostly involved detecting illness, she added that it is exciting to see that
“they can smell other parts of the human experience.”

Can dogs detect the novel coronavirus? The nose knows.

The latest research adds to a growing body of evidence related to dog behavior —
how dogs see, think and smell — and their positive psychological effects. Dogs
can make people feel better by relieving anxiety and symptoms of depression.
It’s why they often are used to support people with anxiety disorders or those
recovering from trauma. The ability of dogs to smell human stress could prove
valuable in training service and therapy dogs, who now largely respond to visual
cues, researchers said.

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“I think this work helps confirm that dogs can be savvy in reading our emotional
states, and this study in particular shows that this could be done through scent
cues,” said Nathaniel Hall.

Hall, who is director of the Canine Olfaction Research and Education Laboratory
at Texas Tech University, was not involved in the study. “The results seem to
reinforce what a lot of owners feel: that their dog can be quite sensitive to
their emotional state.”

There are many anecdotal stories shared by pet parents of such moments. Ben
Goldberg, of Scottsdale, Ariz., recalls how Yadi, their mini goldendoodle,
crawled into his wife’s lap after they learned that an initial fertility
treatment had failed. (The couple now has a 10-month-old son.) “He immediately
sensed she was upset,” Goldberg said. “Yadi recently did the same thing again.
My wife found out last month that her grandmother had passed away and, as soon
as the call ended, he immediately curled up into her.”

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Victoria Allen, of Goochland, Va., tells a similar story about her mutt, Spes.
At a beach, she and Spes came upon a group of young people, one of whom was
crying. “Spes ignored everyone else and immediately went to the crying young
woman to see her,” Allen said. “She loves people, so it was not surprising, but
in this case it was clear that this woman was the only person she wanted to see.
Spes moved directly toward her, with no hesitation, and just nosed her hand.”

In real-life settings, dogs probably use a variety of contextual signals such as
our body language, tone of voice or breathing rate to help them understand a
situation, Wilson said. The study results “provide firm evidence that odor is
also a component that dogs can pick up on,” she said.

Why do cats knead? Why do dogs lick you? The science of pets’ quirks.

The study did not determine whether the dogs could identify human emotions, that
is, recognize whether participants were feeling happy, sad, angry or fearful,
for example — only that they were experiencing stress as measured by the
physiological signs of increasing heart rate and blood pressure.

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“The dogs can differentiate something about human odors in stressed vs.
non-stressed states, but not necessarily that they know anything about how a
person is feeling, or what it means when the humans are stressed,” said Evan
MacLean. MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the
University of Arizona, was not part of the study. “They might — but we just
don’t know that from this study.”

Soot, a female mixed-terrier-type breed rescue, was one of four dogs included in
a study at Queen’s University Belfast, testing dogs ability to smell stress.
(Video: Matt Donnelly / Queen's University Belfast)

The researchers collected sweat and breath samples from human participants
before and after giving them a difficult math problem to solve and used only
samples from those who showed increases in blood pressure and heart rate — signs
of stress from performing the task. Samples were collected from 36 nonsmokers
who did not eat or drink anything before the test. Each person’s breath and
sweat samples were collected by having them wipe gauze on the back of their
neck, place the gauze in a sterile glass vial, and then exhale three times into
the vial.

The four dogs, Treo, a male Cocker spaniel; Winnie, a female cockapoo; Fingal, a
male brindle rescue Lurcher/hound mix; and Soot, a female mixed-terrier-type
breed rescue, were pets selected from a larger group of dogs after initial
testing showed they were highly motivated to choose from different samples of
human odors.

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To teach the dogs which scent to recognize, the scientists first exposed them to
the stressed person’s sweat and breath sample alongside two control vials with
clean gauze, and used clickers and treats to train the dogs into identifying the
correct ones.

Later, each dog was presented with breath and sweat samples from the same
participant before and after experiencing stress. The dogs correctly alerted the
researchers to each person’s stress sample in nearly 94 percent of the 720
trials, Wilson said.

She said she hopes future research can determine if the dogs can distinguish
between positive and negative stress.

“While we suspected the dogs would be able to distinguish between each person’s
relaxed and stressed samples, it was fascinating to see how confident they
were,” Wilson said. “I hope we can build on this and discover even more about
these gifted animals and what they can do.”

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READ MORE FROM WELL+BEING

Well+Being shares news and advice for living well every day. Sign up for our
newsletter to get tips directly in your inbox.

Mind: Learn 8 ways to lower stress about things you can’t control. Why
experiencing awe is good for you. Learn more about ketamine therapy.

Body: Should you take a vitamin D supplement? Is it safe to take a baby to the
chiropractor?

Life: Are you happy at work? These 12 questions can help you decide. Are
soulmates real? Yes. But it’s complicated.

Food: Just one hour of extra sleep each night can lead to better eating habits.
Learn how to stop stress eating and train your brain to crave healthy foods.

Fitness: Here’s why sitting all day can cause health problems — even if you
exercise. Running your first marathon? Here’s what veteran runners wish they had
known.

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