Hearing a human voice can affect a dog more than previously thought. New research suggests that angry or happy voices are linked to measurable changes in dogs’ balance.
In a small-scale study published in the journal PLOS One, scientists found that dogs responded physically to happy and angry human voices, with angry voices often causing destabilizing effects.
The research, led by Nadja Affenzeller and her colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, in Austria, exposed dogs to recordings of happy and angry voices and then examined their posture changes.
Postural stability is fundamental for dogs as it is for humans, because it allows the body to remain upright, walk and move without falling. To maintain stability, our muscles rely on visual cues as well as the body’s sense of its own position.
Recent research in humans suggests that external sounds may also influence stability, with high frequencies linked to destabilization and white noise to stabilization.
Until now, little research had explored whether sound affects balance in animals. To address this gap, Affenzeller’s team exposed 23 dogs—each standing on a pressure-sensing platform—to emotionally charged human voices.
They then measured the shift in the dogs’ center of pressure, assessing five parameters linked with balance control.
Scientists compared the dogs’ posture when no sound was played and then again when human voice recordings were played. One parameter known as the support surface showed a clear association with the emotionally charged voice recordings.
Compared with silence, hearing an angry human voice was associated with higher support surface—the area of the platform occupied by the swaying path of a dog’s center of pressure—values, indicating destabilization. None of the other parameters showed consistent association with either angry or happy voices.
When they looked at individual dogs, researchers found that happy voices were linked to destabilization in 57 percent of the dogs, while 43 percent showed the opposite effect—stabilization or “freezing”. Angry voices were associated with the most severe destabilization in 30 percent of dogs, while 70 percent did not show any changes.
These findings suggest angry and happy human voices may elicit emotional arousal that can both stabilize and destabilize balance.
Further research could deepen understanding by exploring, for instance, whether prior experiences affect individual dogs’ reactions, and whether freezing in response to happy voices may be related to anticipatory adjustments in preparation for voluntary movements—such as an approach.
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Reference
Affenzeller, N., Aghapour, M., Lutonsky, C., Peham, C., & Bockstahler, B. (2026). Effects of happy and angry human voice recordings on postural stability in dogs: An exploratory biomechanical analysis. PLOS ONE, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339979