Research shows a dog’s sense of smell helps them navigate human behavior and emotion.
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In the study, the reward centers in the dogs’ brains became activated when the person used a high-pitched, happy voice. The dogs were glad to greet the happy-sounding person, but they reacted negatively or ignored people who spoke with deep or angry-sounding voices.
Dogs might not be fluent in your language, but they’re experts at picking up tone of voice. A scientific study published in 2016 found that dogs’ brains react based on the tone of voice of the person talking to them.
He did a test where a dog watched their owner struggle to open a container. The owner then asked another person for help. Sometimes the person helped, and sometimes they refused. After each interaction, the dog was given the choice whether to accept attention from the other person or ignore them. On turns when the person refused to help the dog’s owner, the dog was more likely to show signs of not liking the rude person. The study shows if a person in your life is regularly rude to you, your dog will decide for themselves they don’t like them. Dogs are Team Owner all the way!
Getting on a dog’s good side might seem as easy as having a pocket full of treats and knowing the trick to a good belly rub, but our four-legged friends aren’t always easy to please. They’re quick to judge a person’s character, and there are some people they simply don’t like.
Everyone knows a dog’s sense of smell is incredibly powerful. Their first move when being introduced to a new dog or person is to give them a good sniff. If they like what they smell and the interaction goes well—BAM, best friends for life. But if they get a whiff of something intimidating, confusing, or downright repugnant, they’ll follow their nose to better smells.
If a dog doesn’t trust you, they may track your movements.
Take notice if a dog seems to be watching your every move — that could mean that they dont trust you or that they feel uncomfortable around you.
“Dogs that are worried about a person may stare at them or visually track their movement from a distance,” Karen Sueda, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist at VCA West Los Angeles Animal Hospital, told Insider.
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You might have noticed that your dog tends to avoid certain people in your circle of friends and family for no obvious reasons. On the other hand you might find it to be very friendly with some strangers. This contradictory behavior shown by your pooch can be really confusing for a clueless owner. You definitely want to know your dog better and even help it feel more comfortable around humans.
Later in the final stage of the experiment the unhelpful actor, the helpful actor and the neutral one were made to offer treats to these canines. The dogs did not want to take treats from the unhelpful person. However happily accepted treats from the cooperative actor and the neutral person. It was seen how dogs changed their behavior/response towards the uncooperative person and formulated a negative opinion for this actor. The conclusion clearly points to the possibility of your pooch disliking someone who is often rude to you.
So if your pet dog growls at or avoids/dislikes certain people it could be linked to negative interactions you’ve had with these people. Or there could be others factors discussed above responsible for its aversion to certain individuals. Therefore dogs can be pretty much hard to please and even their favorite treats may fail to win them over when offered by some folks.
The blog editor of Pets World is a pet aficionado and fervently follows her pet-obsession. A pet parent to animals big and small for the past two decades. The sum of all experiences gathered is an amalgamation of useful knowledge and research.
