Dogs can smell the stress odor in humans: Research

Written By : Isra Zaman

Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

Published On 2022-09-29 03:45 GMT | Update On 2022-09-29 03:45 GMT

Dogs can smell stress from human sweat and breath, a new study by Queen's University Belfast researchers has found.

The study involved four dogs from Belfast – Treo, Fingal, Soot and Winnie – and 36 people.

Researchers collected samples of sweat and breath from participants before and after they did a difficult maths problem. They self-reported their stress levels before and after the task and researchers only used samples where the person's blood pressure and heart rate had increased.

The dogs were taught how to search a scent line-up and alert researchers to the correct sample. The stress and relaxed samples were then introduced but at this stage the researchers didn't know if there was an odour difference that dogs could detect.

In every test session, each dog was given one person's relaxed and stressed samples, taken only four minutes apart. All of the dogs were able to correctly alert the researchers to each person's stress sample.

The research highlights that dogs do not need visual or audio cues to pick up on human stress. This is the first study of its kind and it provides evidence that dogs can smell stress from breath and sweat alone, which could be useful when training service dogs and therapy dogs.

Reference:

Clara Wilson et al,PLoS ONE

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Article Source : Plos One

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Isra Zaman

Isra Zaman is a Life Science graduate from Daulat Ram College, Delhi University, and a postgraduate in Biotechnology from Amity University. She has a flair for writing, and her roles at Medicaldialogues include that of a Sr. content writer and a medical correspondent. Her news pieces cover recent discoveries and updates from the health and medicine sector. She can be reached at editorial@medicaldialogues.in.

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Dogs can smell the stress odor in humans: Research

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