Puppy love? It’s real, study says
‘Love hormones’ rise when gazing in eyes
Gaze into a dog ’s eyes and it feels like there’s a conversation going on. Despite the language barrier, it seems clear you can communicate with your pet.
Now, a new study suggests that you and the dog are communicating chemically as well.
Japanese researchers found that when a dog stares at its human, levels of a hormone called oxytocin rise. This squirt of oxytocin, known as the “love hormone” for its role in parent-child bonding, encourages the human to gaze longer. This then triggers a squirt of oxytocin in the dog, creating a feedback loop of happiness and connection.
“Dogs and humans can communicate very naturally, and they can be friends in a natural way,” the paper’s first author, Miho Nagasawa, a post doctoral fellow at Jichi Medical University in Shimotsuke, Japan, said through a translator.
The study, published in the current issue of Science, involved two experiments. In one, a dog owner and pet were left to interact for 30 minutes. Owners whose dogs spent the longest time looking into their eyes showed a burst of oxytocin, as measured by urine samples.
The same test was tried on a small number of wolves and their handlers without any mutual gazing or hormone boost.
In the second experiment, the dogs were given a squirt of oxytocin up their noses before interacting with their owner and two strangers. The female dogs — but not males — who were given extra oxytocin stared more.
Clive Wynne, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University who specializes in the relationship between people and dogs, said he’s dubious of the connection the researchers drew. Wynne said he thinks any animal that developed a bond with a human would exchange an oxytocin boost. “I know people who kiss back” when pet wolves kiss them, he said. “If we were to repeat the study on those people, my guess is their oxytocin would go up.”