Do Dogs Help Teens Cope With Social Stress? It Depends, Researchers Say

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 19, 2026 (HealthDay News) — They say a dog is a boy’s or girl’s best friend, but that relationship isn’t always a healthy one for a teenager who struggles with social anxiety, a new study says.

Teens manage their stress in healthier ways if they see a dog as a beloved companion, researchers reported Aug. 17 in the Journal of Adolescence.

But viewing a dog as a substitute for people is linked to unhealthy coping strategies like avoidance, rumination and emotional numbing, researchers found.

“Dogs in many ways bridge the space between family and peers,” said senior researcher Megan Mueller, director of the Pets and Wellbeing Lab at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

“They’re obviously not your parents, but they’re part of the family unit and may serve as a familiar source of comfort,” Mueller said in a news release. “We were curious if relationships with companion animals, and dogs in particular, may be one way of supporting effective coping through social support and emotion regulation.”

For the new study, researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 500 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and their parents. The teens all had high levels of social anxiety, and they were quizzed about their relationship with their dog and how they cope with stress from peers.

“We wanted to see if certain dog-relationship qualities were associated with either productive or less-effective coping strategies,” lead researcher Nicole Mason, a doctoral student at Tufts, said in a news release.

About 1 in 10 teenagers experience social anxiety, which is persistent fretting about being judged by their classmates and other peers, researchers said.

“During adolescence, teenagers develop their sense of self,” Mueller said. “Teenagers undergo a natural shift, with peers replacing parents as their primary relationships. There’s naturally some emotional churn during this transition, which can cause a lot of anxiety for some kids.”

Results showed that teens who cared for their dog and enjoyed their companionship were more likely to manage stress in healthy ways, through problem solving, positive thinking and regulating or expressing their emotions.

But reporting that their dog is a more important friend than any peer — essentially a replacement for other people — was tied to less-healthy coping strategies, researchers found.

“One possible explanation is that a dog becoming a teen’s main source of social support may reflect a lack of other social connections,” Mueller said.

Teens also were more likely to develop unhealthy coping skills if the dog proved a source of friction or conflict through bad habits like shoe-chewing or relieving themselves indoors, researchers said.

“Future studies will help us understand that relationship and other potential dynamics at play more clearly,” Mueller said. “We’re now following teens and their dogs over time to better understand how these relationships develop and whether factors such as a dog’s personality, behavior and compatibility with a teen influence their coping and well-being."

More information

The BOLO Project has more on how dogs help teens.

SOURCE: Tufts University, news release, Aug. 17, 2026