Hearing a human voice can affect a dog more than previously thought as new research suggests that angry or happy voices are linked to measurable changes in dogs’ balance, with angry voices often causing destabilizing effects that physically sway their bodies. Scientists led by Nadja Affenzeller at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria exposed 23 dogs each standing on a pressure sensing platform to recordings of happy and angry voices and then examined their posture changes by measuring the shift in the dogs’ center of pressure. Compared with silence, hearing an angry human voice was associated with higher support surface values indicating destabilization. When researchers looked at individual dogs they found that happy voices were linked to destabilization in 57 percent of the dogs while 43 percent showed the opposite effect of stabilization or freezing, while angry voices were associated with the most severe destabilization in 30 percent of dogs while 70 percent did not show any changes.
The findings suggest that angry and happy human voices may elicit emotional arousal that can both stabilize and destabilize balance depending on the individual dog’s response, with some dogs freezing in place when hearing happy voices. Postural stability is fundamental for dogs as it is for humans because it allows the body to remain upright, walk and move without falling, with muscles relying on visual cues as well as the body’s sense of its own position to maintain balance. Recent research in humans suggests that external sounds may also influence stability with high frequencies linked to destabilization and white noise to stabilization, but until now little research had explored whether sound affects balance in animals. Further research could deepen understanding whether the freezing response to happy voices indicates dogs preparing to move toward their beloved owners. This study proves that our emotional tone doesn’t just communicate feelings but actually moves our furry friends in ways we can measure.
