UBC professor says to stop hugging your dog

Dog owners are being told that they should not be hugging their four-legged friends.

Stanley Coren, a professor in the department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia said that when a human hugs a dog, the animal's stress levels go up.

Coren decided to google “hug dog” or “love dog” and save 250 random photographs of humans hugging dogs. The idea behind it was to research if dogs really are more stressed when they are kissed and hugged.

The photos used had to have the dog’s face visible and photos that had other eliminates of stress were tossed to the side. Each picture received one of three possible scores:

1. One could judge that the dog was showing one or more signs of stress or anxiety;
2. One could judge that the dog appeared to be relaxed and at ease;
3. One could decide that the dog's response was ambiguous or neutral

In Coren’s findings, 81.6 per cent of the photographs the dogs were giving off at least one sign of discomfort, stress or anxiety. Of the 250 photos, only 7.6 per cent of the photos showed happy, comfortable dogs being hugged.

The final 10 per cent of photos had dogs with neutral responses to the hugging.

“I suppose that one aspect of the data that struck me as interesting comes from the fact that the photographs that I used were obviously posts by individuals who wanted to show how much they cared for and shared a bond with their pet,” Coren explained.

“This means that the people who were doing the Internet posting probably chose photos in which they felt that both the person and the dog looked happiest. Nonetheless, around 82% of the photographs show unhappy dogs receiving hugs from their owners or children.”

Coren finished off his findings by saying humans should save hugs for two-footed family members and lovers, and stay clear of hugging your dog.