Have your humans been squeezing you and hugging you and generally driving you a little crazy by their odd expressions of love and joy on Valentine’s Day? Do you wish the humans would get a grip or, at least, figure out how to demonstrate love to you in a way that feels just as good to you as it does to them?

If so, you are in good company.

Research going back to the 1970s has found that human dog guardians are not as good at understanding the emotional content of dog behavior as they think they are. A 2009 study  in Australia confirmed this.

Eighty-nine humans who were taking a puppy socialization class in Melbourne participated in the project by noting whether they saw behavior associated with six emotions in dogs. Researchers asked the humans to identify happy, anxious, angry and sad dogs and to distinguish between an anxious greeting and a friendly greeting. Experienced dog owners were less likely to get the greetings right. Men were especially likely to misread the friendly and anxious greetings.

This study also suggested that humans who aren’t reading dog behavior accurately – they seem a bit complacent about their dog knowledge to me – are more likely to approach a dog who is not feeling friendly than are non-dog people. Researchers would like to shake the false confidence a bit to encourage humans to take courses where they can learn more about dogs so everyone can get along better.

Which Emotions Do Which Animals Express?

Humans aren’t able to agree that we companion animals even experience emotions. Actually, I read that back in the 1800s animal emotions were not so controversial. Charles Darwin took emotions in mammals for granted in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).  In the 20^th century, however, human scientists decided that the idea of emotions in animals was silly. They looked at attempts to describe our emotions as efforts to make us seem more like humans, which is called anthropomorphizing. Some grudgingly accepted that primates could have the same emotions that humans experience.

Now, the trend in research is to accept that mammals and some other animals have primary emotions – fear, interest, curiosity, affection, surprise, sadness, anxiety, anger and disgust – but save the other emotions for humans. Researchers in the UK published a study in 2008 that found that animals demonstrate behaviors that indicate that we also feel the secondary emotions of jealousy, pride, empathy, guilt, grief, shame and embarrassment.

Up to 100 percent of dogs, horses, cats, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, hamsters and birds demonstrate the primary emotions.

This research is based on human reports of seeing the emotions in their companion animals, so the researchers were a bit skeptical and added some procedures to account for the human error in observing our emotional behavior.

In the end, the researchers found secondary emotions most often in dogs, horses and cats. About 80 percent of dogs and horses showed jealousy. Same with horses and pride. Three-quarters of dogs showed guilt. More than half of cats also showed jealousy and pride. Guinea pigs, rats, birds, rabbits and hamsters show secondary emotions too, but not as much. The companion animals observed for this study were unlikely to feel embarrassed, which is a nice thing for them.

More and more scientists are willing to admit that it can be good science to find what pet guardians have known all along: animals are deeply emotional beings who can love as well as we can fear. In fact, some scientists, like Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist, say that human and mammal brains have the same basic structures for processing emotion. If the brains are built the same, why wouldn’t we process emotions the same way? That question is the basis for a lot of human science writing, such as ­­­­­­­­­­Patricia B. McConnell’s For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend (2007).

McConnell is a practical human, and she uses her scientific knowledge to help dogs and humans get along better. This takes me back to my opening questions. McConnell says that it’s important for humans to consider how dogs receive emotional gestures. For example, dogs love petting and massaging, but they are likely to find hugging around the shoulders and chest – a favorite human show of love – somewhat unpleasant at best.  Humans love hugging and most of them can’t imagine that their dogs wouldn’t love it as well. However, the dog version of a hug is used to display social status in a group of dogs.

Humans who want to learn to recognize behaviors associated with emotions in dogs could get a lot from reading one of McConnell’s books. For example, when dogs have their mouths tight shut and their bodies are frozen stiff, they are not feeling at ease, even if they happen to wag their tails. Dogs who are feeling friendly will open their mouths at least a little and include a loose wag of their hips along with the tail wagging.

As much as humans talk and write about observing and reading their companion animals’ emotional behavior, we animals also observe and read our humans. In fact, I’ll bet most of us, and most honest animal trainers, would agree that we are better at reading humans’ emotions than humans are at reading ours.

Tagged as: @boriskitty, animal emotions, Darwin, emotions, Patricia McConnell