Little Things that Matter Your LIFE: Your dog really can tell when you're happy

Mandy Oaklander | August 11, 2026

Sometimes, I'll glance over at my dog and catch her just staring at me. Studying me. What is she thinking? I wonder. What is she learning?

A lot, it turns out. Yesterday, my colleague Jeffrey Kluger wrote about a new study which found that dogs are uniquely good at perceiving human emotions. To reach that conclusion, researchers put 14 very cooperative canines in an MRI scanner (my dog would never) and watched as their different brain regions lit up at photos of smiling, sad, and scared people.

Unfortunately, we still struggle to understand them. “Humans are not so good at perceiving the emotions of our dogs,” the study’s co-author, Laura Cuaya, told Jeff. “We are confused by them. Maybe this work can be an invitation to try to be more aware of the emotions of our dogs."

TODAY’S TOPICS

What does plastic do to the heart?
How to correct someone’s table manners
DXA scans might be TMI

BIG NUMBER

84%

The share of people being treated for a heart attack who had micro- and nanoplastics in their coronary blood in a small recent study, far higher than those without heart disease.

The results are the latest evidence that heart-disease risk may be linked to plastic exposure. —Veronique Greenwood, Staff Writer

SOURCE: European Heart Journal

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PLEASE ADVISE

Here’s a great question we received from a reader:

What can I say to someone who chews with their mouth open—or talks with food in their mouth—without embarrassing them?

I sympathize with this question: The sound of someone loudly chomping and smacking their way through a meal sends a shiver down my spine. But before appointing ourselves the manners police, Stayce Wagner, a business-etiquette consultant in Jacksonville, suggests asking two questions: Is this a repeat offense, and is this person close enough to me that I can reasonably say something? “Correcting the terrible table manners of someone who isn’t your partner—or your child—is social and relationship dynamite,” she says.

If it’s your partner or someone else you’re close to, bring it up privately—not while they’re chewing and definitely not in front of the entire table. Wagner suggests saying: “I know you don’t realize it, but sometimes you talk with food in your mouth, and I find it affects my ability to enjoy the meal. Would you be open to me pointing it out when it happens?” Asking permission to flag the habit in the future gives you a way to address it without launching the same awkward conversation at every meal.

With a coworker, acquaintance, or stranger, however, Wagner says the most tasteful approach is to adapt rather than correct. If someone double-dips, for example, put what you want on your own plate before they dive in. If possible, sit farther away from the open-mouth chewer—or stop making dinner plans with them. What probably won’t help: glaring, making jokes, deploying sarcasm, or visibly recoiling. Those reactions might communicate your disgust, but they’re unlikely to change the habit. “It’s practically impossible to correct someone’s manners without embarrassing or insulting them,” Wagner says. —Angela Haupt, Editor, Health & Wellness

Got a social dilemma of your own? Send it our way to healthmatters@time.com, and we might tackle it in a future edition of the newsletter.

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