Dogs can sniff out stress on their owner’s breath.
Dogs can detect when we are stressed, say the researchers behind a new study.
The authors explained that "odours emitted by the body constitute chemical signals that have evolved for communication, primarily within species". Given dogs' role in supporting human psychological conditions such as anxiety, panic attacks, and post-traumatic stress disorder , the researchers wondered whether dogs could be sensing chemical signals to respond to their owners' psychological states.
The authors pointed out that performance at above 80% correct was needed in the training stages before the testing stages commenced in order to be sure that if a dog's performance during the testing phase dropped to chance at the testing phase, this was because the stress and baseline samples were indistinguishable to the dog, and not because the dog "didn’t know how to do the task".
"This study demonstrates that dogs can discriminate between the breath and sweat taken from humans before and after a stress-inducing task," said the authors. An "acute, negative, psychological stress response" alters the odour profile of our breath/sweat, and dogs are able to detect this change in odour, they highlighted.
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