By Claudia Bensimoun

First published: The United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA)

Do dogs feel your stress? This USDAA feature by Claudia Bensimoun on barkuptoday.com reveals that dogs mirror their owners’ cortisol levels, according to a Swedish study of 58 dogs and their owners. Female owners and competition dogs exhibit the strongest synchronization—stressed owners result in stressed dogs.

Hair samples confirm long-term stress transfer. From agility to daily life, it offers tips to reduce dog anxiety by managing your own stress. Below are key highlights from the article, including how calm leadership improves canine wellness. Read the full feature on USDAA.com here.

Agility competitors have all felt the impact of stress and have likely noticed their dogs feeling stressed as well. While cortisol levels naturally increase with physical activity, previous research has shown that short-term saliva cortisol levels rise in both dogs and their owners when they compete together.

A recent study by researchers at Linköping University (Sweden) compared the long-term impact of physical activity on cortisol levels in companion and agility/obedience dogs. The study, first published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, discusses how dogs mirror their owner’s stress levels, and not vice versa, as previously thought. 

Let’s take a look at how this study can help agility competitors and create a more relaxed environment during competition. 

The Study

The researchers worked with 25 Border Collies and 33 Shetland Sheepdogs. These dogs all had female owners, and both dogs and owners had to provide hair samples on two occasions, separated by a few months. Activity collars were used for a week to measure the dogs’ activity levels. The dog owners also had to complete two questionnaires about their own and their dog’s personalities.

The researchers then checked whether stress levels correlated with the dog’s personality traits, and concluded that “surprisingly enough, we found no major effect of the dog’s personality on long-term stress. The owner’s personality, on the other hand, had a strong effect. This has led us to suggest that the dog mirrors its owner’s stress,” says senior lecturer Lina Roth of the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM) at LiU and principal investigator for the study.

While studying how dogs get stressed by their environment and their pet parents, researchers at Linköping found that “the levels of long-term cortisol in the dog and its owner were synchronised, such that owners with high cortisol levels have dogs with high cortisol levels, while owners with low cortisol levels have dogs with low levels,” says Ann-Sofie Sundman, also of IFM, as well as principal author of the study and newly promoted doctor of ethology, via Science Daily.

In particular, they noted that the stress levels in agility or competing dogs were closely correlated with those of their owners. The scientists added that “this may be associated with a higher degree of active interaction between the owner and the dog when they train and compete together.” 

What needs to be considered is that both the Border Collie and the Shetland Sheepdog are breeds that work well with their owners. They are both intelligent dog breeds that are sensitive to cues and stress. That said, more studies are underway to determine whether a similar synchronization occurs between other dog breeds and their owners. Researchers also want to determine whether a dog’s owner’s gender may affect stress.

The researchers concluded that “if we learn more about how humans influence different types of dogs, it will be possible to match dog and owner in a way that is better for both, from a stress-management point of view. It may be that certain breeds are not so deeply affected if their owner has a high stress level,” says Lina Roth.

The study has received financial support from Agria, the SKK (Swedish Kennel Club) Research Fund, and the European Research Council (ERC).

Claudia Bensimoun, Dogs Mirror Stress, Canine Cortisol Synchronization, Dog Owner Stress Transfer, USDAA Agility Stress, Dog Behavior Science, Pet Stress Management, Canine Wellness, Dog Anxiety Reduction, Vet Stress Insights, Holistic Dog Training, Competition Dog Stress, Human Dog Bond, Pet Emotional Health, Dog Training Calmness

Resources

1.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190606102036.htm