Ever been freaking out, and your dog comes over to comfort you? Turns out, that might not just be coincidence.
According to a new study done at Queen’s University Belfast (not the one in Charlotte), your dog can actually smell when you’re stressed.
The study followed four dogs were presented with breath and sweat samples before and after a difficult math exercise. The pups were able to detect with more than 90% accuracy which samples came from when.
Researchers believe that dogs are able to pick up on our stress levels from lots of context clues. But this study focusing on scent alone, seemed to also prove how impressive man’s best fried is!
One thing important to note is that the research doesn’t reveal is whether dogs feel empathy when a person is stressed. But if your dog is like mine, it isn’t hard to tell they have some level of empathy. My dog will always come up to my if I’m sad of stressed; he will make an effort to be close to me. That has to count for something on the empathy level!