Dogs have a better understanding of how its owner is feeling than the other way around, according to experts.
Researchers say that your dog’s social skills make it more adept at reading your mood, with people often misunderstanding their pet’s reactions.
Studies suggest that a range of domesticated animals, including pets and livestock, posses far greater emotional intelligence than we may give them credit for.
Dogs have a better understanding of how its owner is feeling than the other way around, according to experts. Researchers say that your pet pooch’s social skills make it more adept at reading your mood (stock image)
The findings will form part of the upcoming Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, being given Sophie Scott, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London.
Professor Scott says that people may misread how a dog is feeling, due to a difference in how pets and their owners view one another.
Studies with hand-reared wolves have revealed that a familiar human occupies the same place for a dog as an alpha animal would in a wild pack.
But for their owners, dogs are treated in a similar manner to a small child.
This can lead to misinterpretations of an animal’s reactions.
Speaking to The Times, Professor Scott said: ‘There was a study this year that showed that dogs don’t like being hugged.
‘You look at photographs of dogs being hugged by people and the dogs show objective signs of distress.
‘The dogs really like being with their owners, they want to be with their owners, but they don’t want to be held. It provokes anxiety in them: as an animal, they want to be able to move freely.
‘And pretty much everyone’s reaction to this was: well, I don’t think that’s my dog. It was a very good example of this asymmetry.
‘Dogs are great at reading us but we are pretty shocking at reading them.’
Begun by Michael Faraday in 1825, the Royal Society’s Christmas Lectures, are now broadcast on UK television every December and have formed part of the British Christmas tradition for generations.
The Lectures have taken place every year since they began, stopping only from 1939 to 1942, when it was too dangerous for children to come into central London.
The theme changes every year, and they are delivered by an expert in their field.
Professor Scott will elaborate on her claims during three lectures being televised later this month.
The lectures will examine more broadly how much human communication has in common with that of other animals that live in groups.
Studies with hand-reared wolves suggest that a familiar human occupies the same place for a dog as an alpha animal would in a wild pack. But for their owners, dogs are treated in a similar manner to a small child. This can lead to misinterpretations of an animal’s reactions.
This will include the rise of the emoji and how social media is changing the way we express how we are feeling in the online world.
Professor Scott added: ‘We know from pre-emoji studies that people talk more, are happiest afterwards and laugh most if they have a face-to-face conversation.
‘Even if the other person is on a screen, if you can see and hear that person you get more bang for your buck from that interaction.
It drops down as soon as you’re just on the phone so there’s no face, and it drops down again if you go to text-based interactions because you lose all that social information.
‘So it will be interesting to see if in a few years, when people are using emojis for these sorts of interactions more commonly, will that improve the status of text-based interactions?
‘Will it make you happier? We don’t know that yet.’
The Christmas Lectures will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm on December 26, 27 and 28.