Can Dogs Feel Bad Energy?

You have likely experienced your dog at one time or another, snuggling with your a bit closer when you are sick or crawling to your side when you're upset and crying. Dogs have a sixth sense of sorts about human emotions and have a great ability to sense someone's energy. 

So, a dog having the ability to sense and feel the bad energy emanating from a human being is not science fiction. Next time your pooch barks at another person walking by, they may be feeling that person's bad energy and acting out their instinct to protect.

Energy is how dogs communicate with one another and with their human companions. Therefore, it makes sense that a dog experiences a heightened sense of energy when they are around other people and animals. Dogs rely on their ability to communicate with other living things through their body language, emotions, and energies. 

When your dog seems to be acting up out of the blue, especially when surrounded by a new person, there is a likely possibility they may be picking up on that person's bad energy. There are a few signs to look out for, however, signs will vary slightly from dog to dog based on their personality. Only you know your dog best, so keep an eye out for abnormal actions and temperaments in your dog!

Negative energy will attract negative energy, so your dog's behavior will most likely resort to undesirable actions. For instance, your dog may resort to barking, growling, howling, showing its teeth, lunging, jumping, spinning, and having its tail between the hind legs. 

On the other hand, some dogs may respond to bad energy in a more submissive way. Signs of submissive behavior to negative energies may be ears down, avoiding eye contact, running away, hiding, cowering behind their owners, and trying to remove themselves from a certain situation. 

Dogs have always been very intuitive creatures. Just as humans can have gut feelings about certain situations and people, dogs experience this as well, and even on a more intense level. Many people like to describe these feelings and emotions as a sixth sense, which is the ability to infer what the true nature of a situation or a person really is.

For centuries dogs and other animals have survived based on their instincts and reacting to certain situations, often negative situations, in assertive and powerful ways in order to protect themselves in the wild. Domesticated dogs have carried this trait with them and still heavily rely on this instinct to protect themselves and their owners. 

Many dog owners have stories about their dog being able to sense someone with negative energy and bad intentions. For example, many stories include a dog being out on a walk in the park with their human - something they do all the time with no issues - when suddenly someone else walks by and their dog will bark and growl at the person for no outwardly apparent reason. 

Another common scenario often reported is when a repairman comes to the house to fix an issue and the seemingly unhappy and displeased disposition of the repairman throws the house dog into experiencing and expressing negative emotions when they don't normally do this. They may resort to barking, howling, guarding, or hiding away if they are timid. 

One of the most common theories about why a dog can sense bad energy if negative energy surrounds another person has to do with the ability to sense and smell pheromones. Pheromones are put out by other people and animals and dogs have the ability to sense them. For example, fear pheromones have a different smell to dogs than that of happy pheromones emitted by a human being. This could be one way dogs can sense and then react negatively to bad energy from another person.  

Dogs are also fantastic body language readers. It is believed that 90% of communication with your dog is actually through non-verbal commands, so they can read human beings almost effortlessly. Therefore, the way people walk, their facial expressions they make, the posture with which they walk, and other traits will affect how a dog reacts to that person. 

For example, if someone comes in contact with your dog that is feeling upset or angry, their body language will be coarse and rigid, which your pup is able to pick up on. 

There is no way to actually train your pup to sense bad energy or not sense bad energy, as that is something that happens on an instinctual level and is not learned behavior. However, there are things you can do to help "train" your pooch regarding how they should behave or react to a person that they don't like or who has bad energy that is unsettling to your dog. Like discussed above, many dogs can show dominance or aggressive behavior when they come in contact with a negative person with bad energy. 

Their instinct will be to protect themselves and you! Therefore, they will likely bark, growl, show their teeth, and shy away from having contact with the person expressing bad energy. This can often be scary for the owner and the person the dog is gearing their reaction toward. 

To control this act of instinct to protect, you can teach your dog that they are safe with you by remaining calm and relaxed, removing yourself and them from the situation, and using commands like "leave it," "stay," and "sit," especially if the dog jumps and lunges at the person in question. Distraction is always a great way to help your pup release their attachment to the bad energy they are experiencing. 

Once you remove yourself and your dog from the bad energy, replacing those negative emotions with something fun, happy, and pleasant will help your dog replace their poor emotions with something they enjoy and find excitement in. So throw a ball around with them, take them for a pupachino, or give them lots of pets and belly rubs to help restore their positive energy and emotions. This will help train your dog to realize they are safe with you in all situations.