This psychologist doesn't think we should hug dogs

A psychologist has disappointing news for dog lovers. Terrierble. Wooful. 

Writing in Psychology Today, Stanley Cohen has put forward the argument that dogs absolutely hate being hugged.

He arrived at his conclusion by studying photographs of dogs that he culled from across the web. Taking a random sample of 250 pictures, his conclusions weren't good for those who like a bit of inter-species affection: "I can summarize the data quite simply by saying that the results indicated that the Internet contains many pictures of happy people hugging what appear to be unhappy dogs. In all, 81.6 per cent of the photographs researchers scored showed dogs who were giving off at least one sign of discomfort, stress, or anxiety."

However, this seems like a flawed study to us, Stanley.

Firstly, what makes for an unhappy dog? A lack of panting and tail wags? Isn't it possible some happier emotions might have been missed by the camera? Secondly, surely many dogs having their photographs taken may be unhappy for other reasons, such as being held in position for the camera? Or being hugged by an unfamiliar model? Or, in some cases, Vladimir Putin. 

We'd like to see further testing on real-life dogs. Dog huggers of the world, unite and prove Stan wrong.