January 7, 2025, 9:33 am | Read time: 5 minutes
Dogs play a central role in many households, and many people think that they know their pets well. But how well can we actually recognize the emotions of our four-legged friends? A new study shows that humans can read the emotions of dogs – albeit with varying degrees of accuracy depending on the emotion.
Being able to understand your own dog is important for owners in every situation. Whether encountering unfamiliar dogs during a walk or discerning when your pet feels comfortable or prefers some space, understanding is key. Dogs frequently communicate their internal state quite clearly through their body language. Surprisingly, many owners are not particularly adept at interpreting their dogs’ feelings and often misread their cues. At least, that is the conclusion of one study.
Dogs Show How They Are Feeling with Facial Expressions and Body Language
So far, studies on this topic have mainly focused on the facial expressions of dogs. However, Professor Kun Guo from the University of Lincoln and his colleagues have also looked at the body language signals of dogs. These are particularly important in communication between humans and dogs and also correspond more closely to the animals’ natural way of expressing themselves.
The study focused on various emotions in dogs. Participants were shown short video sequences and asked to identify when dogs displayed joy, anger, or fear. Frustration and pain were also tested. A total of 447 test subjects of various ages took part in the study. Their experience with dogs varied widely, from those with no dog ownership to professionals in dog care.
In an online experiment, the participants had to rate short video clips of dogs showing various emotions. A total of 44 videos were used in which dogs expressed their feelings either through facial or body language. After watching the videos, the participants were asked to select the emotion from a list of eleven categories.
Do We Always Understand Our Dogs Correctly?
The aim of the study was to investigate how well people are able to recognize different emotions in dogs – and whether facial or physical expressions are more meaningful. Special focus was given to distinguishing between primary emotions (such as joy, fear, and surprise) and secondary emotions (such as frustration, pain, and positive expectation).
The background to this is that an incorrect interpretation of dogs’ emotions often leads to problematic situations – whether due to misunderstandings between humans and animals or potential safety risks.
Another aim was to find out to what extent experience with dogs influences recognition. This is particularly relevant as many dog owners are convinced that they can “read” their dogs perfectly – but previous studies have suggested that this is often overestimated. This is often due to experienced dog owners overestimating their ability to understand their pets and sometimes acting more assertively than those with less experience.
People Find it Difficult to Deal with Some of the Feelings of Dogs
The videos were filmed in such a way that either only the dog’s face or its entire body was visible. The test subjects rated each scene once, and the researchers then analyzed which emotions were correctly recognized and which were frequently confused. The duration of the participants’ dog experience was also taken into account.
This showed that people tended to be better at recognizing dog emotions through body language than through facial expressions. The average recognition accuracy was 33.7 percent for body language and 32.3 percent for facial expressions. This probability might seem low at first glance. It is also extrapolated and differs greatly in terms of the various emotions.
- Joy was clearly more recognizable through body language (76.7 percent) than through facial expressions (48.9 percent).
- Fear was better recognized by body language (25.4 percent) than by facial expression (6.9 percent).
- Anger was more clearly readable in the face (62.9 percent) than in body language (55.2 percent).
- Body language was also more meaningful for pain (21.5 percent) than the face (6.4 percent).
However, the values fluctuate relatively strongly and are very low when it comes to recognizing fear and pain. Joy or anger, however, were easy to interpret for the majority of the test subjects. Interestingly, the facial expression of fear was frequently confused with happiness, whereas the body language of fear was more commonly misinterpreted as sadness.
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However, the study showed that experience with dogs only had a very small influence on the recognition of the animals’ emotions. Only in the case of subtle emotions such as appeasement or fear did accuracy improve with increasing dog experience.
The results of this study, therefore, reveal important gaps in human-dog communication. This is because dogs’ body language often seems easier for humans to interpret than mere facial expressions. However, a dog that wants to appease its owner is difficult to distinguish from a happy animal at a quick glance at its face. However, if it wags its tail or crouches down slightly, the mood becomes clearer. These findings could be used to avoid misunderstandings between humans and dogs in the future.
The study also shows that more experience with dogs does not automatically mean that they are better at interpreting emotions. This suggests that even seasoned dog owners might gain from targeted training to better interpret dog behavior. If you want to understand your four-legged friend better, you should, therefore, pay attention to subtle body movements – because facial expressions alone can be deceptive. 1