Turns Out, We Can't Read Our Dogs' Emotions All That Well |
Jamie Street on Unsplash" />Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever
As pet owners, we take having furry companions very seriously. In fact, a Purina survey published last year found that 73% of pet owners consider their pet to be their best friend while 53% see them as their own children.
Guilty.
Additionally, dogs are the most popular pet in the UK, with data from the PDSA revealing that 30% of UK adults have a dog – an estimated population of 11.1 million pet dogs.
So, you’d think with all of this in mind, we would be able to read dogs pretty well, right? Tail wagging = happy, lying down looking glum = sad. Easy!
Well, it turns out, not so much.
We are actually quite bad at figuring out how dogs feel
In a new study, researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) found that how we read our dogs’ emotions actually depends on our own moods. Wild.
The researchers found that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely to think a dog is sad........