What Happens When a Dog Sees Its Human Crying?

You've surely felt sad more than once and had your dog come comfort you with cuddles, licks, or even bringing its favorite toy to cheer you up. This is because dogs quickly detect when their human is crying or sad, and try to comfort them.

It's always been said that dogs are very smart, but this time there's even a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University showing that dogs come to their humans faster when they hear them crying.

How Do Dogs Detect If We're Sad or Crying?

It's not really that they have a sixth sense — it's that their highly developed senses, like hearing and smell, let them quickly detect their humans' mood. On top of that, dogs will also read our gestures to know if we're happy or sad.

Their hearing can detect if we're crying even if we're in a different room, far from them. Their sense of smell can detect the pheromones we release based on our mood, so they can smell stress, nervousness, anxiety, and even sadness, as incredible as that might sound.

Actually, we humans are the ones who have some difficulty telling whether our dog is sad or not, because they can tell if we're happy, sad, or even crying with remarkable ease.

What Do Dogs Do When They See Us Crying?

Their first reaction will always be to come to our side to find out what's going on. If they see us crying, it's common for them to snuggle up next to us, give us cuddles, and even lick us to try to comfort us.

Many dogs, eager to cheer up their humans when they see them crying, will even bring their favorite toys to make them feel better. Since they love those toys so much, why wouldn't their humans love them too?

Other dogs simply sit next to us and look at us with affection, waiting for our sadness to pass, keeping us company through those difficult moments when we're letting out some of that sadness.

The truth is they're so smart that they seem to know when it's a good idea to cheer us up, and when it's better to let us release some of that sadness before giving us cuddles to lift our spirits a bit.

Can a Dog Tell If We're Crying From Joy or Sadness?

Of course they can — they're able to detect our emotions even before many other humans can, since their highly developed senses can pick up on them. Our dog knows us much better than we imagine, and can tell our mood at any given moment.

If we're crying from joy, it'll know we're not sad even though we're crying, so it'll also get very happy and jump around with joy or play with us. If we're crying from sadness, it'll know right away and act based on what it thinks is best — comforting us or keeping us company.

Scientifically Proven: Dogs Come to Our Aid When They See Us Crying

A study conducted with thirty-four dogs of different breeds, sizes, and ages showed that dogs who hear their humans crying come to their aid much faster. The study was conducted at Johns Hopkins University in the USA and involved placing dogs in a room with a transparent door, with their humans on the other side.

In some cases, the humans were asked to hum or sing something, and in others, to cry. Dogs who heard their humans crying came looking for them three times faster than the rest. This suggests they knew perfectly well that something wasn't right.

Not Every Dog Will Come to Comfort You If You Cry

The dogs that will indeed come right away are the ones who live with you, thanks to the emotional bonds between you. That said, it's also common for other dogs to come comfort you even if they don't know you at all, as is the case with more affectionate breeds like the Golden Retriever.

Other dogs that don't know you will prefer not to approach, out of caution, though they can still detect that you're crying. It's much more common than we might think to see a certain empathy in animals toward humans when our mood is low.