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A recent research determined that the dogs empathize the same way as humans. They also recognize various facial cues, understand the moods and follow the directions to integrate with humans as much as possible. Scientists from the University of Helsinki conducted a research to understand how dogs interpret the facial expressions. For this purpose, they studied the staring patterns of 31 dogs that represented 13 breeds. These dogs were presented with a series of images to make the the deduction, reported Clovis News Journal

As per the research findings, dogs looked longer at the dog faces that appeared threatening but they looked away from the human faces that gave the same expression. "The tolerant behavior strategy of dogs toward humans may partially explain the results. Domestication may have equipped dogs with a sensitivity to detect the threat signals of humans and respond to them with pronounced appeasement signals," researcher Sanni Somppi said in a university news release. The dogs interpret the facial expressions by looking at the face but focusing on the eyes. They also noticed that different facial expressions can make them change their viewing behavior, especially if the face looks angry. When humans have an enraged expression, dogs prefer to look away. This reaction can be due to their evolutionary response to detecting threat signals to be able to survive, says I4U

The participant dogs were trained to stay still in the video camera and made to look at series of photographs. The dogs always looked at the eyes first and their gaze lingered longer than the mouth or nose area. However, while assessing the facial expressions, they centered their gaze on the whole face and especially the eyes. The study was published in PLoS One and is the first ever recorded study of emotion-related staring patterns in a non-primate animal, said the study authors, as reported by Health