Dogs can smell your fear

Dog owners swear that their furry best friend is in tune with their emotions. Now it seems this feeling of inter-species connection is real: dogs can smell your emotional state, and adopt your emotions as their own.

Science had already shown that dogs can see and hear the signs of human emotions, says Biagio D’Aniello of the University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy. But nobody had studied whether dogs could pick up on olfactory cues from humans.

“The role of the olfactory system has been largely underestimated, maybe because our own species is more focused on the visual system,” says D’Aniello. However, dogs’ sense of smell is far superior to ours.