You would be amazed as to how much your dog absorbs from you and the family. They are so in tune to you and look up to you. We surely don’t give them enough credit ever. Actually our dogs can sense things before we do. In fact, they have specific service dogs that are aware of when someone is going to have a seizure or other anxiety disorders and stress before you are even aware that it is going to happen.
Dogs can sense anger, sadness, if you are depressed, and all your emotions just by your tone of voice and by your body language. When there is anger and anxiety, most times they will retreat and/or hide away somewhere as though they are in fear. They have very sharp senses and very fine tuned hearing. We may not think so when they seem to “ignore us” at times when calling them. That is called “selective hearing”. They have good hearing.
If they see that you are upset in a sad kind of way they are so willing to come over to cuddle, sit in your lap or be close to you. No one can ever say that our dogs, even cats, cannot tell how we are feeling and share in those feelings. It is said that sometimes they can sense your emotions through “smell” and we all know they do have really good sniffers. They call it “smelling fear”.
I would have to say that animals seem to have more empathy than some humans do, as it is in their nature to either protect or comfort you in any way they are able to. Dogs are actually great stress relievers. When we are feeling bad, sad, depressed, or sick, something in their nature will make us feel so much better immediately. That is why they take dogs to hospitals and nursing homes and they have proved to have a tremendously positive effect on the people there.
They seem to work better than medications sometimes, by lowering blood pressure and heart rate, regulating a person’s breathing and reducing stress. Not to say that you should not take prescribed medications from your doctor, but it has been proven that interacting with a precious loving dog for up to a half hour can be just about as effective as taking an anti-depressant medication.
So, to sum it all up, our pets definitely know what we are feeling, are very in tune to our emotions and, the best thing ever is that they, in their infinite charm, loyalty and unconditional love have the ability to “heal us”.
