You know the feeling: You have a big vacation coming up: reservations made, details finalized, pet sitter booked, and your anticipation mounting. Then, a day or two before (or five, in my wife’s case!), out comes the suitcase. And that’s when your pup starts velcro-ing a little closer to you, jumps up when you so much as sneeze, or looks hopeful the moment you stand. For me, that’s when the guilt starts. “No, buddy,” I say, “not this time.” And I swear, he looks forlorn.

This was my experience last week as Karen and I prepared for our long-awaited trip to Scotland. Then I started wondering: Is it just me projecting my feelings onto our Frankie? Or does he (or, really, do all dogs) feel emotions like ours?

I did some research, and wasn’t surprised to learn that, over the centuries, as dogs have become domesticated and the bond between humans and canines has grown, they’ve learned to pick up on our feelings. A recent study by the University of Vienna used MRI imaging to measure the reactions of 12 dogs to pictures of humans displaying emotions of happiness, fear, anger, and sadness. The results showed increased brain activity that varied by the kind of emotion. Their conclusion? Yep, dogs can respond to our feelings based solely on our facial expressions.

Which then led me to wonder: Do dogs feel the same emotions we feel? Well, kind of. While dogs don’t experience emotions in the exact way we do, they do have their own set of emotions. They can feel happiness, fear, anger, and even a form of sadness. This sadness might be better described as a reaction to our emotional state rather than a deep emotional understanding.

In other words, they don’t know why we’re sad, but they can recognize when something isn’t right in our world. When we’re sad, our dog may pick up on our body language, tone of voice, and even the scent of stress hormones we release. This can trigger a response in our dog, making them act differently.

All of which just confirms what I already knew: As excited as we were about our trip, we were still sad to be leaving Frankie. And he knew it, and he felt it, too! Thank goodness for the journal updates and cute photos we get from our Buckhead Paws pet sitters—we know he’s a happy pup when they visit (and we LOVE the flying ears pics)!