Toronto: Dog owners, take note! Your pet may not like being cuddled as a new study suggests that the canines feel stressed and unhappy when they are embraced by their owners.
This is because it stops them from being able to run away, according to Stanley Coren from University of British Columbia in Canada who conducted the study.
Coren analysed images of dogs being hugged by adults and children he found on the internet, looking for signs of stress, The Telegraph'reported.
When a dog is especially anxious it bares its teeth or may bite, but there are also ‘subtler indicators’ that it may be uncomfortable, Coren said. There are different signs of stress and anxiety - the dog folding its ears down, half-moon eyes or turning its head away to avoid eye contact, closing its eyes, or licking its lips.
Yawning or raising one paw is another warning sign, said Coren.
He found that the dogs had at least one sign of discomfort, stress, or anxiety in 81.6 per cent of the photographs. Only 7.6 per cent of the photographs showed comfortable dogs while the remaining 10.8 per cent were either neutral or ambiguous.
