The crafty little feckers...
A new study from Companion Animal Research Lab at Azabu University in Japan has shown that dogs aren't just making those cute [puppy dog eyes at you for the laugh, they're doing it because they know that they can get something out of you if they melt your heart.
Co-author of the study Takefumi Kikusui, a professor of veterinary medicine at Azabu University, noted that the hormone called oxytocin (which pop-scientists are calling "the love hormone") is released in the human brain when dogs make their cutesy face at you, and that canines "may have gotten its prized place in human hearts by tapping into an ancient human bonding pathway."
The same hormone is released when a mother looks at their infant child, and the pups in our lives seemed to have cottoned on to this, as for domestic dogs and wolves, eye contact is not normally a way that they bond with each other and interact. In fact, it has somewhat of the opposite effect, as "dominant dogs stare down canines lower in the group's hierarchy, and pups that are nervous will look away" according to Evan MacLean, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University.
The study also showed that after spending 30 minutes together, both the humans and the dogs involved saw a spike in oxytocin (which was measure in their urine) and that the bigger the increase in the human, the bigger the increase in the dog too, which suggests "that the oxytocin feedback loop can cross species boundaries."
Kikusui stated that "We humans use eye gaze for affiliative communications, and are very much sensitive to eye contact. Therefore, the dogs who can use eye gaze to the owner efficiently would have more benefits from humans". So, the next time your dog gives you that face, just know they're manipulating you and that...aww we can't stay mad at that face though!
Pic via Barbara Walsh/Flickr
Via Live Science. Main pic via John McStravick/Flickr
