Can my dog tell if I m depressed
How to Know if Your Dog is Depressed
Unlike humans, dogs cant verbalize what they are feeling. But even though dogs experience different emotions than we do, experts recognize that dogs can experience mental health problems similar to depression. But how do you know if your dog may be depressed?
How to Spot Signs of Depression in Dogs
Dog depression symptoms will vary, depending on the individual dog and how serious the problem is. There are some key things to look out for, however. Keep an eye out for changes in body language during their interactions with people and other pets, decreased appetite, and lethargic behavior.
Dr. Leslie Sinn runs Behavior Solutions and is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) and a certified professional dog trainer. The main thing would be a change in normal demeanor, she says. What I hear from most of my clients is that their dog is not that willing to engage in activities that previously they seemed to really enjoy.
She gives the example of a dog who normally loves to play fetch. If a dog who usually loves fetch is now playing for one or two rounds and then loses interest, its clear their attitude has changed. You then might be wondering Is my dog depressed?
Dr. Sinn also lists other signs, including clingy, needy behavior, and, perhaps, a need to be closer to the owner in general. Some dogs, however, can go the other way, and they can become overly withdrawn.
Ruling Out Pain or an Underlying Medical Condition
The symptoms of dog depression are often commonly similar to those displayed by a dog suffering from an underlying medical condition or chronic pain. Sometimes, these issues can even be triggers for depression.
Dr. Sinn always encourages owners to have their dogs medically evaluated to rule out any medical problems. In general, if a dog is slowing down or is reluctant to engage, especially in the absence of some life-changing event, then I would bet huge amounts of money that it is medical or pain-related, she says.
Common Causes of Depression in Dogs
If you suspect your pet is suffering from dog depression, ask yourself what has changed in their life and environment. There are a variety of triggers for depression. Sometimes its an obvious thing, but it can also be more subtle changes or a combination of issues that have built up over time.
Depression, in animals anyway, is something that we tend to associate with a specific event, says Dr. Sinn. It could be the loss of an owner, the loss of a buddy that they have grown up with, or a huge lifestyle change a big move, or the addition or subtraction of key members of their social group. It tends to be context-specific.
She explains that people should look at their dogs basic environmental and social circumstances to understand what may have brought about the changes in their behavior.
Common triggers for dog depression may include:
Dr. Sinn explains that some of the most severe cases of dog depression shes seen have come from dogs coming out of just horrific rescue circumstances hoarding situations, meat farm dogs, that kind of thing.
Dr. Kelly Ballantyne is a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and the leader of Insight Animal Behavior Services. She says that serious behavioral issues can often result from a combination of genetics, early life experiences, physical and social environments, and ongoing learning processes. We regularly meet with experienced dog owners who provide appropriate amounts of exercise, enrichment, play, and training, and still have dogs that suffer from fear, anxiety, and depression.
You could have a very, very anxious dog that has a lot of behavioral suppression, adds Dr. Sinn. It really kind of freezes or shuts down and that whole process can lead to depression. The dog doesnt want to eat, doesnt want to move, doesnt want to do much of anything. It doesnt want to engage and, consequently, removes itself from social interaction. In these severe cases, treating the problem may not be straightforward.
How to Treat Depression in Dogs
As Dr. Sinn points out, dogs are amazingly resilient. If there is a significant event associated with their depression, often some simple environmental and social changes can make a huge difference. She suggests things like spending some extra time with them, taking them on extra fun walks, playing a little tug, or having a little grooming session. Usually, with a little time, extra attention, and enjoyable enrichment, your dog will move through their depression without any major difficulty.
For some dogs, their depression is a more permanent issue that can be more serious in the long term. This dog will need extra support. Dr. Sinn is keen to reiterate that these dogs have often had a particularly traumatic past, and it is not a surprise that they need extra help.
Often behavioral guidance from a professional is recommended, and, in some instances, you may want to discuss pharmacological support with your vet. We dont medicate out of convenience for the owner, says Dr. Sinn. But if the poor dog is unable to function the majority of the time, then something needs to be done to address the quality of life and welfare of that individual.
Dr. Ballantyne explains that medications are very helpful in cases where a dogs underlying emotional state is interfering with their ability to learn new behaviors or negatively affecting their quality of life. This is especially true when there are many different types of triggers for the dogs fear or anxiety, or when the triggers are unavoidable. She gives the example of a depressed dog who is terrified of storms and lives in an area where storms are frequent for months throughout the year.
I think its important to acknowledge that pharmaceutical options arent the only treatment for dogs suffering from mental illness, but rather just a part of the treatment plan, points out Dr. Ballantyne. She notes that the most effective treatment plans may include a combination of pharmaceuticals, managing your dogs environment, and behavior modification.
Does My Dog Know When Im Sad? A Science-Backed Answer
Dogs have a unique ability to understand what you are feeling. They can interpret whether you are feeling happy or sad. Being loving pets, they try their best to help us get through tough times by cuddling and licking. It seems a cute gesture of a pet to reassure if their owners are okay or not. But hows it possible for dogs to know that we are sad or happy? Does my dog know when Im sad?
What is going on behind the cute eyes of your dog that makes them capable of understanding our feelings? Are dogs capable of smelling depression? What is the science behind dogs ability to detect sadness in humans?
Lets try to figure out the answers to these questions in depth in this article.
Can Dogs Sense When You Are Feeling Down?
If you are a dog owner, you might have an experience with this thing, whatever it may be, where when you were about to cry, but your furry friend came and started cuddling. You might have thought that it happened by chance. But it didnt. The research was initiated to understand whether dogs are receptive to emotional cues from human vocalizations. The results showed that these furry creatures do notice when you are sad and try to comfort you by hugging, licking, playing, etc. Dogs dont leave their owners alone during harsh times and show their unconditional love for you.
The research conducted on this topic has also proved that dogs are capable of understanding the health condition and moods of humans. Evolutionary and ontogenetic processes played a pivotal role in dogs ability to detect social information from human behavior, providing the basis for complex forms of interspecific social communication, concludes a study, Discrimination of Familiar Human Faces in Dogs (Canis familiaris).
The sixth sense of dogs is strong enough to suggest whether their human buddies are stressed, ill, or sad.
How Do Dogs Process Human Emotions by Hearing Different Vocalizations?
Research has shown that dogs can read human facial expressions and understand human emotions. They possess a special skill in understanding what a human is feeling at a particular time. Recently research was conducted at Bari Aldo Moro University (Italy) to understand the procedure involved in how dogs process human emotions.
An experiment was conducted in an isolated room at Bari University to consider the impact of different emotional sounds on dogs. Two speakers connected to a sound mixer were placed at an equal distance from the food bowl. A digital video camera was positioned on a tripod stand at the front of the bowl in the setup to record the response of dogs to various stimuli. A wireless cardiac monitoring device was put in a particular place in the setup to monitor the heart rate of dogs.
During the experiment, pet owners had to lead the dog to the food bowl on a loose leash. Once the dog takes the right position (i.e., it is standing right between the speakers and in front of the camera) and starts eating from the bowl, the owner had to unleash the dog and stand behind the dog at a distance of around 3m. After this, stimuli were played, and the reactions of dogs were monitored through different devices. The reactions of dogs after listening to different sounds were recorded and observed through webcams.
Various sounds of emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, surprise, and happiness were expressed and projected toward dogs one by one via speakers. Sounds of sadness were conveyed to dogs in the form of sobs, whereas the feeling of happiness was demonstrated as laughing sounds.
It was concluded from the research that dogs can even read human emotions using their ears. The right side of the dogs brain processes negative emotions, while the left side detects positive emotions.
This research was conducted on a sample of 14 male and 16 female dogs. All these dogs were pets living in homes with their human pet parents. The results proved that dogs can interpret a wide range of human emotions expressed in the form of sounds just by listening to vocalizations.
Do Dogs Really Recognize Humans Sadness and Emotions?
Research also proved the fact that dogs are sensitive toward emotions expressed by human faces. Dogs can detect and discriminate facial expressions of humans, which helps them to decipher the feelings and emotions of their human buddies.
It is believed that an adult dogs mind possesses the same mental capabilities, vocabulary understanding, and emotional intelligence as that of a human toddler. The canine IQ test revealed the fact that an average dog has mental abilities similar to a 2-year-old child.
When we are sad and express our sadness, our dogs feel distressed. So, they try to do something to calm their owners and help them get through it. One of the unique behavior reported under such circumstances was that dogs also become sad when they see their owners are depressed.
However, most dogs try to give comfort to their owners when they are sad.
How Does A Dog Respond To Your Sadness?
Dogs may show their empathy for humans in many different ways.
A few of them are discussed below:
Stay Close to You
Your dog may come to you to display their empathy when you are sad. Many dogs comfort their owners by placing their heads on their laps to show their love. They may even start licking your hands or foot to show affection to help you come out of stressful situations.
Distracting Tools
Sometimes when dogs notice that their owners are stressed, they may try to distract them by acting playfully. Some dogs try to cheer their human friends by doing silly acts such as:
- Throwing the ball to convince humans to play with them
- Initiate a cute fight with you by biting your clothes or foots
- Do any other cheerful act to divert your mindset
Staying Silent and Giving Space to Owners
Some dogs love their owners in a way that they become distressed by seeing their human buddies being sad. They might not be able to come to you and show affection because they themselves become down by seeing you sad. You might think that your dog is ignoring you, but they are not!they are giving you the necessary space you need.
What Is the Science Behind Dogs Ability To Smell Depression?
Dogs have a powerful sense of smellthey possess 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to about six million in humans. Sometimes this powerful sense of smell is referred to as the dogs 6th sense. These furry creatures are too good at detecting the production of various hormones and chemicals within our bodies.
Serotonin
It is a chemical responsible for the regulation of anxiety, mood, and happiness in humans. A low level of serotonin is usually associated with depression. When a human is sad, dogs can detect depression by judging the increase or decrease in the level of serotonin.
Cortisol
Also known as the stress hormone, it is associated with anxiety levels. People who are depressed tend to have elevated cortisol levels in their bloodstream, along with low levels of serotonin in the brain. When a dog senses a rise in cortisol in your bloodstream, they get to know that you are feeling depressed.
So, your dog may react in a comforting and supportive way to decrease your anxiety level.
Signs Your Dog Senses Your Depression
When dogs observe that you are down, they might respond in a loving way to their owners. You can interpret from the behavior of your pet that he has sensed your depression and is now trying to comfort you. They might also try to get closer to you and start cuddling as they know that their cuddles can help relieve a bit of stress.
The signs exhibited by dogs when they sense depression are raised paws, tilting of the head, licking, approaching you, and leaning into you to comfort their human buddies.
Why Dogs Are Ideal for People With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Keeping a dog is an effective technique to lift ones mood; it is scientifically proven that having a dog help to ease your anxiety, boost your self-confidence, and has an overall calming effect on your mental health.
People who are going through stressful times can go for developing a friendship bond with dogs that will help them to come out of the stressed stage. Being a dog owner, one feels energetic and active because these furry animals love to listen to their owners without judging or criticizing them. Besides, they can be great companions on your walks or indoor games.
All of the tactics used by dogs to help their owners to feel good really help people to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional support dogs can be the best choice for such people as they dont need special training. Similarly, therapy dogs are also famous and are now being used at offices, schools, and hospitals to provide comfort to upset, stressed people who need a canine company to chill their mood.
Recently, a research study found that spending just ten minutes with therapy dogs improved hospital patients overall well-being. Compared to patients who hadnt spent time with therapy dogs, those who did reported significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression following the visit.
Training a Dog to Smell Depression
Dogs are unique creatures who are blessed with the ability to detect a huge spectrum of smells. So, when humans are anxious, and when their facial expressions show signs of stress, dogs may smell the chemicals being released from the human body. Dogs can learn to create a certain connection with specific kinds of smells. Therapy dogs and emotional support dogs are trained to help out humans.
For example, dogs can associate the sweating smell of humans with a higher level of anxiety. They may interpret anxiety or stress levels based on other factors such as the release of cortisol, crying sounds, stressed facial expressions, etc. Once they detect it, they act accordingly to provide comfort and support to humans. Dogs can also be trained to react differently to different smells.
The emotional support provided by a pet in the ups and downs of life has no match. One feels so relaxed and calm when we notice that our friends really have a special feeling for us and are putting their efforts in to support us through the ups and downs, the highs and the lows. The irreplaceable friendship and unconditional love of dogs are enough to bring a smile to our faces during our dark days.