Do Dogs React to the Scent of Human Fear?

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It turns out that dogs are highly attuned to emotional scents—particularly negative ones. StanleyCoren explains how it works.

perhaps they could be taught to respond to these chemical signals and to point out to us that a person is likely to be telling us lies."

To the best of my knowledge there were no published reports exploring this question coming out of his laboratory; however some recent research from a team headed by Biagio D’Aniello of the Department of Biology at the University of Naples Federico II suggests that this area of inquiry might be worth a second look.

The testing set-up was fairly straightforward: 84 dogs and their owners were individually tested in a room which contained two chairs diagonally opposite each other in the corners. In one of these the dog's owner sat, while in the other was a stranger. Both remained passively seated during the testing session. In the center of the room was an apparatus which contained the odor sample. After the odor sample was released into the air the dog's behavior was videotaped and analyzed.

The researchers were looking for a number of different things. Obviously they were looking for signs of stress, such as panting, yawning, mouth licking, barking, pacing, and so forth. They also noted whether the dog was looking toward or approaching the door which allowed exit from the room. In addition they monitored which person the dog approached and paid

 

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