Petting Dogs Was Supposed To Lower Stress—Scientists Found Something Else 

Petting your dog may do more than just put a smile on your face, according to a new study that examined the effects of physical contact between dogs and their owners. Researchers from the University of Innsbruck found that dog owners who physically touched their dogs after a stressful situation showed lower stress levels when faced with a second challenge. Monica Berntsen, consultant psychologist and neuropsychologist who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek that one possible explanation is that interacting with a familiar dog may signal safety to the nervous system.

Stroking a dog you know answers 'yes' through the body rather than through thinking. Slow, rhythmic touch, warmth and a calm, familiar animal all tell the nervous system to stand down," she said. The study, published in Biological Psychology, involved 64 dog owners, including 51 women and 13 men, with an average age of 34.

Each participant brought their own dog, which had to be at least 2 years old, healthy and comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. To investigate the effects of the physical contact, researchers exposed participants to two stressful tasks: a timed general knowledge quiz and a mental mathematics exercise. During the quiz, participants had just five seconds to answer each question.

For the mathematics task, they had to count backward by fixed numbers while following a blinking red dot, preventing them from slowing down. A researcher monitored them through video calls, providing negative feedback. Participants completed two separate test blocks.

In one, they could freely interact physically with their dogs by stroking them, petting, or holding them. In the other, their dogs remained nearby on a short leash, where they could see and talk to them but where not allowed to touch them. Researchers monitored participants' brain and activity using brain recordings and electrocardiograms (ECG) and also asked how they felt at key points.

Initially, researchers wanted to determine whether petting a dog could help people recover faster after a stressful situation. However, the results did not show immediate recovery advantage. The more notable differences emerged during the second stressful task.