Experts have explained the best way to apologise to your dog if you accidentally hurt it - using a way they can understand rather than simply telling them we're sorry. A study published in Animal Cognition says speaking in a baby voice - otherwise known as 'dog-directed speech' (DDS) - can ease your pet's mind'.
The research team studied pet dogs from volunteers with some being spoken to in a 'normal voice' while others were spoken to in a 'baby voice'. Those spoken to in a baby voice stayed attentive for longer.
A researcher wrote: "Overall, the results of this study suggest that naturalistic DDS, comprising of both dog-directed [speech patterns] and dog-relevant content words, improves dogs' attention and may strengthen the affiliative bond between humans and their pets."
You should also check your dog's paw for any injuries, if you have stepped on it, and ice them for 10 minutes if you spot redness or swelling, reports The Mirror.
Another study, published in The Royal Society, claims dogs have the ability to understand human intentions based on their emotional response. This means they understand it was an accident
Researchers said dogs are able to understand human tone and facial expression to discimante between positive emotions - such as concern and negative emotions such as anger.
"The perception of emotional expressions allows animals to evaluate the social intentions and motivations of each other," the study reads.
The researchers wrote: "We presented dogs with either human or dog faces with different emotional valences (happy/playful versus angry/aggressive) paired with a single vocalisation from the same individual with either a positive or negative valence or Brownian noise.
"Dogs looked significantly longer at the face whose expression was congruent to the valence of vocalisation, for both conspecifics and heterospecifics, an ability previously known only in humans.
"These results demonstrate that dogs can extract and integrate bimodal sensory emotional information, and discriminate between positive and negative emotions from both humans and dogs."
