What Scientists Believe About Dogs' Emotions

Ask anyone who has a faithful canine companion whether or not they have emotions and feelings, and the answer will be a super obvious, "Of course they do! How can you look into those deep, soulful eyes and think otherwise? Are you a monster?"

But here's the thing: We don't really know what's going on in our dogs' hearts and minds. Is it possible that we're just projecting human emotions onto them? It's possible, sure, but according to science, canine emotions are very real — and they're fascinating.

Barnard College actually has a Dog Cognition Lab, and while it's unclear whether or not the clever wordplay was intended, it's nice to think that it was. Head researcher Alexandra Horowitz has written extensively on canine emotions, and had an interesting take on things. She says that while it's important to acknowledge that yes, dogs have emotions, they're not precisely experienced in the same way as humans have feelings. But, that said, she added (via The New York Times): "For all we know, dogs' emotional experience is far more elaborate than ours."

While that's a beautiful thing for beloved pets with warm, cozy homes, it's also important to think of the strays, the abandoned, the homeless, and those waiting in shelters. They're a bundle of emotions, too, and that makes those ultra-depressing cases of animal cruelty somehow even worse. That said, let's take a deep dive into what science has been able to tell us about humankind's best friends.

Puppies are pretty incredible: The whole world is new to them, and every experience is a first. Some greet new things head-on, while others are a little more on the shy side. (All puppies, however, are perfect.)

Puppies navigating new situations are running on a few emotions, including fear. Interestingly, researchers at Italy's University of Pisa have done some fascinating studies on what makes a puppy more or less fearful of new experiences, and a huge part of that comes down to their mother.

For this study, Psychology Today says the university's researchers recruited eight Beagle families. Lucky, lucky researchers documented how much time each mother spent doing things like cuddling with her puppies, licking them, and nursing them. The litters were monitored for 8.5 weeks, and then, each puppy was removed from the security of his or her family and placed in a fenced enclosure in a separate room. Puppies were left alone for three minutes and videotaped for signs of curiosity, distress, or anxiety.

It turned out that the more affectionate the mother had been, the more likely the puppy was to be confident in the face of this sudden and massive change. Another, similar experiment where puppies were handled by humans for just five minutes a day and starting at 3 days old also led to more confident, less fearful pups — a valuable piece of information for anyone who finds themselves with a litter of puppies.

Can dogs get any more wonderful? Wholesome? Perfect? For anyone who's ever wondered why their canine BFF always seems to know when they're feeling a little blue and needing a pick-me-up, science has an answer — and it's incredible, says NPR.

Researchers from the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Budapest wanted to know how dogs were so good at picking up on their owners' emotions, so they trained 11 dogs — border collies and retrievers — to lie in an MRI machine while they listened to recordings of people and other dogs. What they found was that dogs have a region of the brain that becomes active when picking up on emotional cues in both the voices of humans and in the vocalizations of other dogs. The more positive the emotion, the stronger the reaction was from that part of the dog's brain.

This portion of the brain is strikingly similar to what's found in human brains, so much so that lead researcher Attila Andics explained to the BBC: "We think dogs and humans have a very similar mechanism to process emotional information. ... The fact that we found these areas exist at all in the dog brain at all is a surprise — it is the first time we have seen this in a non-primate."

Bottom line? Pupper knows when you need an extra cuddle because they know precisely what you're feeling.

There's nothing that's straightforward about grief, and the loss of a beloved family member is devastating. It's devastating for dogs, too.

In 2022, researchers from the University of Milan published the results of a study done on canine grief. The Guardian says that owners were asked to fill out an extensive questionnaire on their dogs' behavior after the loss of another dog in the home, and results were telling. A full 86% of dogs demonstrated behaviors consistent with grief, including a loss of interest in food, sleep disruptions or more sleeping, and a lack of interest in toys, games, walks, and other activities. Factors like age and breed didn't matter. According to what veterinary behaviorist Dr. Nicholas Dodman told NBC News, some dogs are so deeply impacted by loss and grief that they require not just time, but "active intervention" — sometimes in the form of a new companion animal — to move on to a healthy lifestyle post-loss.

It's incredibly important for multi-dog households to keep all this in mind. Dodman explains, "This is a real phenomenon. ... This is something people should know."

Researchers say recent findings aren't entirely surprising: Not only are dogs pack animals, but their heightened senses can smell and remember a former companion dog long after humans have put away their toys and hung up their harnesses.

Dog owners have all seen what they think might be jealousy, but is it? Yes. There are a few fascinating studies on canine jealousy, like one from the University of Vienna. They asked a group of 43 dogs to do tricks, and the dogs happily obliged even if they didn't get a treat or other reward. When they saw other dogs doing the same thing and getting a treat, though, they became less likely to listen and more stressed (via New Scientist).

Results of another study done at the University of Auckland were published by the Association for Psychological Science. According to Science Daily, the study found that dogs' jealous behaviors were triggered not just when they saw their owners interacting with a rival (in the form of a fake dog), but when their view of that rival was blocked by a divider. Seeing their owners interacting with another inanimate, less dog-like item didn't get the same response, suggesting that canine jealousy isn't just real, but is felt whether the owner's interaction with another dog is seen or not.

Those findings supported an earlier study, reported on by The New York Times. Psychologists from the University of California had owners either play with a realistic-looking stuffed dog, read from a book, or fuss over a pumpkin. Most of the dogs weren't bothered by the book or the pumpkin, but the dog? They made it perfectly clear that the stuffed dog needed to get away from their person, like... right now.

Empathy is a complicated thing: More than an emotion, it's relating to the emotions of others. And dogs? They're champs. 

In 2018, the results of a study on empathy and behavior in dogs were published in Learning & Behavior (via Science Daily). In the study, a group of dogs (both registered therapy dogs and pets) were separated from their owners by a door they could open. Owners were told to either hum or cry, and the dogs' responses were documented.

Some of the dogs who heard owners humming would open the doors to go to them, but more interesting were the responses of the dogs to their crying owners. Not only did the dogs tend to open the door much more quickly, but according to a study published in 2018, stress levels rose in the dogs who heard their owners crying — and that's key.

The lower stress levels of the dogs looking for their humming owners suggested they were simply curious about what was going on, or looking for them because that's just what dogs do. The high stress levels and faster response dogs gave to crying owners suggested that not only did they feel concern and a desire to help, but they were suppressing their own stress in order to come to their owners' aid. The fact that therapy dogs didn't do any better or worse than pets was telling, too, with researchers suggesting it's not a behavior that's taught, and instead comes with human-dog bonding.

When we leave dogs — even just for a little bit — some can suffer from what we call separation anxiety. It's well-known what they do, but what are they feeling?

Starting in 2014, the University of Lincoln started a study that involved 2,839 dogs. The findings were published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, and they found "separation anxiety" wasn't a diagnosis, but a symptom of underlying problems and feelings.

They found four main things at the root of separation anxiety behavior. In one group, they traced the behavior back to feelings of panic and anxiety at being separated from their owner, and when going to find their person didn't work, their frustration came out in destructive behaviors. A second group was described as feeling much the same as the first — panic at being alone — but as also experiencing aggression.

A third group experienced the same social panic, but instead of having an escape instinct that pushed them to go find their owners, they took solace in the comfort of the familiar surroundings of the home. The fourth group was defined as suffering from extreme boredom when left alone, which then manifested into the typical destructive behavior associated with separation anxiety.

It's interesting work that turns the whole idea of separation anxiety upside-down: It's not something a dog has, it's something a dog does in response to what they're feeling when they're left alone — and that root cause is what needs to be addressed.

So, we know that dogs are innately friendly, but here's the interesting thing: Research published in Science Advances 2017 suggests there's actually a genetic component to a dog's in-your-face friendliness.

The study — which was conducted as a joint effort between several universities, including Princeton and Oregon State University — looked at the genetics of friendly dogs and wolves. There were two genes in particular that were isolated in dogs deemed to have "hypersociability," and the weird thing? Those genes are also found to present in a similar way in humans, particularly those humans diagnosed with something called Williams-Beuren syndrome.

That, says Inside Science, is a condition that is diagnosed in about 1 in every 10,000 people, and interestingly, one of the characteristics that's associated with it is a super-friendly, outgoing personality. (Unfortunately, it also comes with some less desirable traits in humans, like a susceptibility to heart defects.)

Researchers believe the variants seen in that particular set of genes directly impact the friendliness of an individual, even within dogs. When they looked at different breeds, those that had a reputation for being friendlier and more affectionate showed similar patterns in their variations. Dr. Clive Wynne suggests that this genetic mutation allowing for friendliness may have played a key part in domestication, encouraging dogs with a genetic predisposition for love to go and make some new friends.