Good Dogs Smell What You’re Feeling

Hello everyone, CEO Olivia here. As you all probably know, we dogs have a well developed sense of smell. Many of us have degrees in Stinkology. But did you know we dogs can smell how you’re feeling emotionally? It’s true.

A study was done where humans watched video’s that would trigger a response of happiness or fear, then their sweat was collected & was then used to see how dog’s reacted to the chemicals in the collected sweat. The dogs were left in a room with their human & a stranger. Then the sweat was introduced into the air through a vent system.

The “happy” sweat seemed to have little effect on the dogs. They remained calm & curious about the stranger. But when exposed to the “fearful” sweat, the dogs became stressed & cautious. The dogs exposed to the fear sweat sample also had consistently higher heart rates than the dogs exposed to the happy sweat sample.

The dog’s didn’t become aggressive & researches concluded the dogs were mirroring the emotions they were smelling. The question must be asked, how does long-term exposure to human stress & emotional imbalances in the home (fear, anger, frustration, etc.) impact a good dogs health?

There are studies being done about how a human’s emotional health can effect the health of a companion animal such as a dog. When I sniff out something about this research, I’ll be blogging about it.

My huMom tries to be mindful about her emotional state when we’re together. She’s aware that I mirror her, but now she knows it’s not just body language or her voice I respond to, it’s about smell too.