Skip to main content

My dog smells stress (and it’s coming from my gadgets)

Just like every other obsessive dog owner on the planet, I believe my dog, Saggio, might be the greatest canine to ever walk the earth. He’s friendly and obedient. He performs a plethora of tricks. He protects the house from Jehovah’s Witnesses, and lets me know every single time a robin has the gall to land on our driveway. He also, apparently, has the ability to peer directly into my subconscious mind – a skill that has had an unexpected effect on my gadget usage.

The first clues of Saggio’s mind reading ability appeared one lazy Sunday evening, as I lounged on the couch, reading a book. Content with his marrow bone chew, Saggio laid sprawled on the living room floor, happily gnawing away.

The difference between spending an hour browsing Twitter and an hour reading Fitzgerald couldn’t have been more noticeable.

A few minutes after I picked up my iPhone, however, his entire mood changed. He let out an irritated yelp, dropped his bone, and attempted to force the phone from my hand.

“Hey, get out of here, Saggio!” I said. “What’s your deal?” He refused to relent, slapping his paw on my knee and nudging my phone with his snout. Okay, I thought, he just wants some attention. But pets didn’t cut it, nor did his ball. He didn’t need to use the bathroom, and he had plenty of food and water.

Confused and frustrated about his irritating outburst, I sat back down, and picked up my book again. Saggio let out a sigh, and returned to his bone, completely at peace with the world.

After that night, my fiancé, Jennifer, and I began closely watching Saggio’s behavior. Our early working hypothesis was that Saggio is simply a spoiled attention whore. We soon found, however, that books, newspapers, and magazines (yes, we still read those) had zero effect on the way Saggio behaved. But the moment either of us picked up a smartphone or laptop, he quickly switched from serene pooch to royal pain in the tail.

saggio
Saggio, heavily Instagrammed Image used with permission by copyright holder

If attention was his only goal, why the difference in behavior between us reading books and playing Angry Birds?

To answer this question – in a completely anecdotal, unscientific way – we delved into the kinds of information dogs can gather that we humans often overlook. In addition to sniffing out the drugs you hid in your dirty underwear, some dogs have the ability to perceive a staggering amount of information about us. For example, did you know dogs can detect when a person is about to have a seizure? How about dogs that unlock a person from a Parkinson’s Disease-inflicted full-body freeze? Some miraculous mongrels can even smell cancer

Saggio can’t do any of that. He can’t even ride a skateboard properly. But we remained convinced that he was using his mysterious powers of dogness to tell us something. We just needed to figure out what that something was.

In addition to sniffing out the drugs you hid in your dirty underwear, some dogs have the ability to perceive a staggering amount of information about us.

Our answer arrived after reading about service dogs that treat sufferers of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. While neither of us suffered from this serious debilitating infliction, we perked up upon learning that these highly trained animals could sense when their owners were having anxiety, and would butt in to help snap them out of it. The behavior sounded strikingly similar to Saggio’s distracting efforts.

We quickly shifted our observations from Saggio to ourselves, which led us to discover what I’ll call High Technology Stress Disorder (HTSD) – a mild (completely invented?) psychological ailment that causes a person’s blood pressure to rise simply by coming in contact with a gadget. Saggio, we realized, was trying to tell us we were stressed out by our smartphones.

Once we admitted this to ourselves, the symptoms appeared clear as day: Mindlessly tapping away on our phones inevitably led to a feeling of unease with the world, the kind you get after pounding a Red Bull. Reading, on the other hand, relaxed us, and made us happy. The difference between spending an hour browsing Twitter and an hour reading Fitzgerald couldn’t have been more noticeable. But it took a creature with smarts of a 2-year-old for us to notice.

Have any of you experienced anything like this? I’d love to hear your stories.

Andrew Couts
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
Jeep Compass EV breaks cover—but will it come to the U.S.?
jeep compass ev us newjeepcompassfirsteditionhawaii  4

Jeep just pulled the wraps off the all-new Compass EV, and while it’s an exciting leap into the electric future, there's a catch—it might not make it to the U.S. anytime soon.
This is a brand new electric version of the Jeep Compass, and being built on Stellantis' STLA platform—the same architecture underpinning models like the Peugeot E-3008 and E-5008—it looks much slicker and packs a lot more inside than previous versions of the Compass.
Let’s start with what’s cool: the new Compass EV is packing up to 404 miles of range on a single charge, a 74 kWh battery, and fast-charging that gets you from 20% to 80% in about 30 minutes. Not bad for a compact SUV with Jeep's badge on the nose.
There are two versions: a front-wheel-drive model with 213 horsepower and a beefier all-wheel-drive version with 375 horsepower. That AWD setup isn’t just for looks—it can handle 20% inclines even without front traction, and comes with extra ground clearance and better off-road angles. In short, it’s still a Jeep.
The design's been refreshed too, and inside you’ll find the kind of tech and comfort you’d expect in a modern EV—sleek, smart, and ready for both city streets and dirt trails.
But here’s the thing: even though production starts soon in Italy, Jeep hasn’t said whether the Compass EV is coming to America. And the signs aren’t promising.
Plans to build it in Canada were recently put on hold, with production now delayed until at least early 2026. Some of that might have to do with possible U.S. tariffs on Canadian and Mexican vehicles—adding a layer of uncertainty to the whole rollout.
According to Kelley Blue Book, a Stellantis spokesperson confirmed that the company has “temporarily paused work on the next-generation Jeep Compass, including activities at” the Canadian plant that was originally meant to build the model. They added that Stellantis is “reassessing its product strategy in North America” to better match customer needs and demand for different powertrain options.
So while Europe and other markets are gearing up to get the Compass EV soon, American drivers might be left waiting—or miss out entirely.
That’s a shame, because on paper, this electric Jeep hits a lot of sweet spots. Let’s just hope it finds a way over here.

Read more
Charlie Cox singles out his least favorite Daredevil: Born Again episode
Charlie Cox in Daredevil: Born Again.

Daredevil: Born Again season 1 was largely reconceived after the 2023 actor and writer strikes. Dario Scardapane -- a veteran of The Punisher series on Netflix -- was brought in to be the new showrunner and he made a lot of changes to the series that were well-received. However, there's one episode that Scardapane didn't really change at all, and it happens to be the least favorite episode of Daredevil: Born Again's leading man, Charlie Cox.

During an appearance on The Playlist, Cox noted that he wasn't very fond of the season's fifth episode, "With Interest," which was a largely standalone episode that featured his character, Matt Murdock, in a bank during a hostage crisis.

Read more
Zoox recalls robotaxis after Las Vegas crash, citing software fix
zoox recall crash 1739252352 robotaxi side profile in dark mode

Amazon's self-driving vehicle unit, Zoox, has issued a voluntary safety recall after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a minor collision in Las Vegas. The incident, which occurred in April 2025, led the company to investigate and identify a software issue affecting how the robotaxi anticipates another vehicle’s path.
The recall, affecting 270 Zoox-built vehicles, was formally filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Zoox said the issue has already been addressed through a software update that was remotely deployed to its fleet.
Zoox’s robotaxis, which operate without driving controls like a steering wheel or pedals, are part of Amazon’s entry into the autonomous driving space. According to Zoox’s safety recall report, the vehicle failed to yield to oncoming traffic while making an unprotected left turn, leading to a low-speed collision with a regular passenger car. While damage was minor, the event raised flags about the system’s behavior in complex urban scenarios.
Establishing safety and reliability remain key factors in the deployment of the relatively new autonomous ride-hailing technology. Alphabet-owned Waymo continues to lead the sector in both safety and operational scale, with services active in multiple cities including Phoenix and San Francisco. But GM’s Cruise and Ford/VW-backed Argo AI were forced to abandon operations over the past few years.
Tesla is also expected to enter the robotaxi race with the launch of its own service in June 2025, leveraging its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. While FSD has faced heavy regulatory scrutiny through last year, safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration.
Zoox, which Amazon acquired in 2020, says it issued the recall voluntarily as part of its commitment to safety. “It’s essential that we remain transparent about our processes and the collective decisions we make,” the company said in a statement.

Read more