Anima Books
books by holistic veterinarian Dr Christine King
The Highly Sensitive Dog
Cultivate joy
Joy is contagious from humans to animals
This section continues the discussion I began in The Highly Sensitive Dog, 2nd edition.
As I just knew was going to happen as soon as I published the book, a paper appeared in Nature the following day that I would have included had it been published earlier. This article is about that study.
Cultivate joy
Chapter 10 in The Highly Sensitive Dog is titled 'Cultivate joy'. This is one of the seven strategies I discuss in Part 2 of the book.
Part 1 is a brief exploration of the science on sensory-processing sensitivity in people and dogs (and a little about horses as well).
Part 2 discusses some strategies aimed at making life easier for these wonderful dogs, and for ourselves in return.
In the first couple of pages of the chapter, I write:
❝ [E]mphasizing the positive aspects of our sensitivity — cultivating joy, one might say — is an effective buffer against distress and all its consequences.
… [A] German study examined the specific characteristics that separated highly sensitive people into two groups: well-adjusted and maladapted.
… [W]ell-adjusted people actively used their esthetic sensitivity to their benefit, describing their sensitivity as a blessing rather than a challenge.
Arguably, dogs may not be as well equipped, or as able in the circumstances in which they find themselves, to choose to find pleasure in their emotional sensitivity. So, we may need to do it for them, by cultivating joy within ourselves and our families, and in all of our interactions with our dogs. ❞
Dogs may not be as able to find pleasure in their sensitivity,
so we may need to do it for them, by cultivating joy.
In Chapter 6, 'Loving social bonds', I discuss a study which showed that dogs pay attention more to our faces than to our words...
. . .
Horses read joy
The following study involving horses makes a similar point:
Jardat P, Yamamoto S, Ringhofer M, et al. Emotional contagion of fear and joy from humans to horses using a combination of facial and vocal cues. Scientific Reports, 2025; 15: 17689.
A group of French researchers documented the reactions of 45 adult horses (all Welsh mares) to videos of human faces.
The actors — two men and two women from local theater groups — were filmed while saying the following, with each of three different expressions: joyful, neutral, or fearful.
“Oh, but how come, that is not possible, I have never seen that before. Oh wow, but no, it's impossible! Wait, are you really sure? No, I can't believe it, it's not possible.”
The horses were then shown short videos of each presentation in random order, with a short pause in between:
Throughout, the researchers recorded the following reactions in each horse:
* heart rate — a measure of sympathetic nervous system activation/arousal
* eye temperature, using a thermal camera — an indicator of 'negative emotional valence', specifically a physiological fear response
* time the horse spent looking at the screen with her right or left eye (i.e., laterality of gaze)
* time the horse spent in an alert position (facing the screen, both ears forward, neck held high)
* facial expressions — eye-white increase (eyes more open to show more of the sclera, or the 'white of the eye'), blow (forced exhalation), nostril dilation, inner brow raised, blink, jaw drop, half blink, ear forward, ear rotated
. . .
The horses clearly differentiated between joyful, neutral, and fearful human expressions, even though the actors were unfamiliar to them.
Compared with the neutral expression, when the actors conveyed joy:
* the horses looked at the videos significantly more with their right eye than with their left (P ≤ 0.05) — “horses perceived videos of human joy more positively compared to neutral videos”
* there were significantly more occurrences of eye-white increase (P ≤ 0.05) and ear movements (P ≤ 0.001), indicating higher emotional arousal and attention
* average (mean) heart rate and maximum heart rate were significantly higher (P ≤ 0.001), indicating higher emotional arousal
❝ [W]e observed higher levels of arousal in horses when the video was of fear or joy compared to when it was neutral, and we also observed reactions specific to the joy video or to the fear video, which indicated a correspondence in emotional valence. ❞
Cultivate joy
Here is how the authors concluded their paper:
❝ In this study, we observed evidence of interspecific emotional contagion of fear and joy from humans to horses based on visual and vocal signals.
Horses showed fear reactions with a heightened arousal and negative-valence emotional state in response to videos of human fear, and heightened arousal and positive-valence emotional state in response to videos of human joy, compared to neutral videos of humans. This suggests the possibility of a form of empathy between domestic mammals and humans. ❞
I don't care for the term 'contagion' in this context, as it implies something harmful. But I do take their point: both negative and positive emotions are 'contagious' in social species. In other words, mood is infectious.
In other words, mood is infectious.
We already know that emotions are 'contagious' between social species, such as between humans and horses. (Heck, spend just a couple of minutes with a horse and you'll see that!) There are plenty of studies which show the same thing between humans and dogs.
For example, in Chapter 4 of The Highly Sensitive Dog, I discuss a couple of studies on chronic stress in dogs, and how it is associated with chronic stress in the dog's primary person and with certain human personality traits.
[In a study illustrated below, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) — an indicator of chronic stress — in dogs tended to increase with their person's HCC. This relationship was stronger in performance dogs than in pet dogs.]
What this equine study is making plain is that this 'contagion' is not limited to the negative emotions, such as fear. It applies equally to the positive emotions, such as joy or happiness — and that horses clearly differentiate between the two emotional states.
Horses clearly differentiate between fear and joy,
and they respond positively to joy.
So, by cultivating joy within ourselves, we are making it easier for our highly sensitive dogs to feel joyful, or at least uplifted, happy, and thus to benefit from the positive aspects of their sensitivity.
. . .
Click on the title to order The Highly Sensitive Dog, 2nd edn.