{"id":23622,"date":"2025-03-10T12:47:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T13:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23622"},"modified":"2025-03-10T14:27:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T14:27:33","slug":"think-you-understand-your-dog-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23622","title":{"rendered":"Think You Understand Your Dog? Think Again."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dogs can\u2019t talk, but their body language speaks volumes. Many dogs will bow when they want to play, for instance, or lick their lips and avert their gaze when nervous or afraid.<\/p>\n

But people aren\u2019t always good at interpreting such cues \u2014 or even noticing them, a new study suggests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the study, the researchers presented people with videos of a dog reacting to positive and negative stimuli, including a leash, a treat, a vacuum cleaner and a scolding. When asked to assess the dog\u2019s emotions, viewers seemed to pay more attention to the situational cues than the dog\u2019s actual behavior, even when the videos had been edited to be deliberately misleading. (In one video, for instance, a dog that appeared to be reacting to the sight of his leash had actually been shown a vacuum cleaner by his owner.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to just perceiving dog emotions, we think we know what\u2019s happening, but we\u2019re actually subconsciously relying on a lot of other factors,\u201d said Holly Molinaro, who is a doctoral student at Arizona State University and the first author of the new paper, which was published on Monday in the journal Anthrozo\u00f6s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That bias could mislead owners about their dogs\u2019 well-being, Ms. Molinaro said. People who want to be attentive to their dog\u2019s experiences and emotions need to \u201ctake a second or two to actually focus on the dog rather than everything else that\u2019s going on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The idea for the study was born in 2021, when Ms. Molinaro was just beginning her doctoral work in canine emotions but the Covid-19 pandemic had sharply limited her ability to do in-person research.<\/p>\n

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Dogs can\u2019t talk, but their body language speaks volumes. Many dogs will bow when they want to play, for instance, or lick their lips and avert their gaze when nervous or afraid.But people aren\u2019t always good at interpreting such cues \u2014 or even noticing them, a new study suggests.In the study, the researchers presented people with videos of a dog reacting to positive and negative stimuli, including a leash, a treat, a vacuum cleaner and a scolding. When asked to assess the dog\u2019s emotions, viewers seemed to pay more attention to the situational cues than the dog\u2019s actual behavior, even when the videos had been edited to be deliberately misleading. (In one video, for instance, a dog that appeared to be reacting to the sight of his leash had actually been shown a vacuum cleaner by his owner.)\u201cWhen it comes to just perceiving dog emotions, we think we know what\u2019s happening, but we\u2019re actually subconsciously relying on a lot of other factors,\u201d said Holly Molinaro, who is a doctoral student at Arizona State University and the first author of the new paper, which was published on Monday in the journal Anthrozo\u00f6s.That bias could mislead owners about their dogs\u2019 well-being, Ms. Molinaro said. People who want to be attentive to their dog\u2019s experiences and emotions need to \u201ctake a second or two to actually focus on the dog rather than everything else that\u2019s going on,\u201d she said.The idea for the study was born in 2021, when Ms. Molinaro was just beginning her doctoral work in canine emotions but the Covid-19 pandemic had sharply limited her ability to do in-person research.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23624,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23625,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23622\/revisions\/23625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}