If the dead-end job, the pokey flat and the endless failings of the neighbours are getting on your wick, then spare a thought for the dog.

In research that confirms what many owners will have worked out for themselves, scientists have found that the household pets are not oblivious to their owners’ anxieties, but mirror the amount of stress they feel.

The finding comes from a study of cortisol, a stress hormone, which circulates in the blood and leaves its mark in strands of hair. Over time, as the hormone is bound into the growing hair, each shaft becomes a biological record of the stress an individual experiences.

After engaging the willing services of 25 border collies, 33 Shetland sheepdogs, and the animals’ female owners, researchers in Sweden found that higher cortisol in human hair was matched by more of the hormone in the dog hair. All of the dogs lived indoors with their owners.