It’s something that’s long been suspected, but researchers have confirmed that dogs can recognise when their human is stressed out. Previous studies have suggested that pooches can probably sniff out human emotions, but scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast looked into whether they could pick up on stress specifically. They presented 4 dogs with breath and sweat samples from 36 human volunteers before and after participating in a challenging math exercise. With more than 90% accuracy, the clever canines were able to detect which samples were taken before the math exercise and which were taken afterwards – showing that stress alters a human’s ‘odour profile’ and that dogs can accurately identify the emotion through smell. Meanwhile, cat owners might want to find another source of comfort altogether…