Trigger Stacking in Dogs: What Is Measured and What Is Assumed
Trigger stacking is taught everywhere in dog training. There is no canine study of it, and its best-known number turns out to have no source at all.
September 5, 2026
unterHUNDs Research
Stress and emotion
Fear, frustration and chronic load shape behaviour more than any training gap. These reviews trace what happens physiologically, how emotional states are measured, and where the common shortcuts – reading behaviour as emotion – break down.
These articles are written in English and aimed at trainers, behaviour consultants and veterinary professionals. Deutschsprachige Beiträge findest du im Hunderatgeber.
Noise Sensitivity in Dogs: Prevalence, Pain and What the Evidence Supports
A dog presses itself into the gap behind the sofa on New Year's Eve, shaking, panting, unreachable. The owner sits nearby, blinds closed, radio on, and does the thing that seems ob…
August 1, 2026
Cognitive Bias in Dogs: Measuring Optimism, Pessimism and Mood
A bowl sits halfway between two places a dog knows well. On the left, bowls have always contained food. On the right, they have always been empty. The dog has never seen a bowl in…
July 25, 2026
Fear Conditioning and Memory Reconsolidation in Dogs: From Neuroscience to Behavior Therapy
A dog treated successfully for its fear of the vacuum cleaner is calm around it for months — then panics again after a house move. Nothing was untrained. The fear had never been re…
July 17, 2026
Approach–Avoidance Conflict in Dogs: Competing Motivations
A dog that wants to greet a visitor but crouches with its tail tucked. A dog that starts toward a novel object and stops mid-step. A dog lunging at the end of a lead toward another…
May 11, 2026
Behavior Does Not Equal Emotion: Limits of Inferring Internal States from Observable Actions
A dog wags its tail. Happy? A dog lies still on its bed. Relaxed? A dog stops barking after a correction. Calm now? These readings feel automatic, and they rest on an assumption th…
May 5, 2026
Arousal Regulation in Dogs: Self-Control, Learning and Calm
A dog that performs a flawless recall in the garden cannot hear its name fifty metres from another dog. A dog that takes food gently at home will not touch a sausage at the vet. Ne…
April 20, 2026
The Neurobiology of Frustration - When Impulse Control Fails in Dogs
Frustration is something nearly every dog owner has watched unfold: the paw slapping the food bowl during a delayed meal, the desperate barking when a longed-for playmate is just o…
April 2, 2026
The Neurobiology of Anxiety in Dogs: From the Amygdala to Behavioral Disorder
Anxiety is one of the most common drivers of behavioral problems in dogs. Separation distress, noise phobias, and generalized anxiety affect a large share of the canine population…
March 30, 2026
Emotional Contagion in Dogs: Can Human Stress Influence Canine Stress Responses?
Dogs are extraordinary readers of human emotion. Thousands of years of living alongside us have tuned them to our gestures, faces, voices, and moods, and a large literature confirm…
March 8, 2026
The Neurobiology of Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Beyond “Spite” to Survival
Separation-related problems are among the most common reasons dogs are brought to behavior professionals, and among the most misread. A dog that howls, shreds the doorframe, or soi…
March 8, 2026
Chronic Stress in Dogs: Neurobiology, Cortisol and Long-Term Behavioral Impact
You punish the growl, and tomorrow it comes back louder. You comfort the trembling, and the fear does not fade. You have tried training, corrections, maybe a different trainer, and…
February 28, 2026