Dogs don’t always love being hugged, writes Angela Vuckovic. She shares study results published in Applied Animal Behavior Sciences revealing dogs in the study often responded to being hugged by expressing feelings of extreme physical stress and anxiety. Misinterpreting a dog’s reaction to being hugged, can be harmful to owners and their dogs.
Source: Pet Guide, June 2024. Link. The action item? Respect a dog’s boundaries and work to increase education for both adults and children in canine communication, context and co-operative ways of respecting agency in human-dog interactions.