Your Stress Levels Affect Your Dog - New Study

Dogs have lived alongside humans for thousands of years.

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They have been used to hunt, guard, herd and perform many other tasks, but today they mainly act as companions. While their lives today may seem easy compared with their ancestors, they still face many stresses - including visits to the vet.

A couple of years ago, researchers in France showed that how a dog owner behaves at the vet affects their pet's stress levels. The study showed that negative owner behaviour, such as scolding, increased dog anxiety during a veterinary examination.

But before our recent research at Queen's University Belfast, no one had investigated the effect of owner stress on their dogs in a controlled environment. Our study differs from the research above, as it looks specifically at the effect of owner stress, measured through heart rate changes, on the stress experienced by their dog when at a vet.