Yes, Your Stress Is Making Your Dog Stressed, New Study Finds

We know: Life is stressful. You’re reminded of that fact pretty much every time you step outside, scroll through social media, or click open a news notification. But if there’s any motivation for cutting down on doomscrolling and taking time for a little self-care, it’s this: Our dogs are picking up on our stress — and it’s making them anxious. In a study published in October, researchers at Queen’s University Belfast looked at how pups and humans react to stress and found that when pet parents’ heart rates increase, our pets’ do, too.

How the study worked

For the study, the researchers fitted 28 dog parents and their dogs with heart rate monitors. Half of the pet parents were then given a digital test meant to induce stress. The other half were given a guided meditation, which included breathing exercises and affirmations, such as “My dog brings me joy.”

After the digital test, pet parents’ heart rates had increased. Following the guided meditation, their heart rates had decreased. In both cases, the change in the pet parents’ heart rates impacted their pets. “Changes in owner HR significantly predicted changes in the HR of their dogs, suggesting that dogs exhibit emotional contagion and social referencing towards their owners in novel situations,” Aoife Byrne, the study’s lead author, wrote. “Acute changes in owner stress levels can produce rapid changes in canine physiological stress parameters.”

Interestingly, the researchers also found that overall, the dogs’ heart rates decreased over time. “This emphasizes the importance of allowing dogs to acclimatize to novel environments,” Byrne wrote.

Researchers hope that these findings can help make stressful situations, including veterinary visits, less upsetting for dogs. “By devising strategies to mitigate owner stress in veterinary settings, canine stress may, as a result of reducing owner stress, also be alleviated,” Byrne wrote.

Anxiety, pet parents, and dogs

The results support previous research that anxious pet parents raise more anxious pups. One 1997 paper found that the personalities of pet parents with “aggressive” dogs tended to be more tense than the pet parents of dogs without a history of aggression. Another study published in 2018 found that pet parents who scored low on the “emotional stability” trait — one of the Big Five personality traits — were more likely to have dogs with behavioral issues. “Dogs belonging to high stress/anxiety clients are often higher than average in their stress levels and exhibit more anxiety or hyperarousal,” Kim Brophey, author of Meet Your Dog: The Game-Changing Guide to Understanding Your Dog’s Behavior, told Kinship.

In other words, whether you’re training your pup, taking them to their annual vet visit, or just spending some quality time together, keep in mind that your attitude may be contagious. A couple of deep breaths and positive affirmations might be the best thing for both of you. And hey, splurge on that spa day, while you’re at it. What’s good for you is good for your pup — it’s science.