What is it like to be a dog?
Scientifically, their capacity for emotions coincides with that of humans.
The dog population in the EU is 65 million dogs and continues to grow.
The relationship has changed a lot in the last 150 years, as they entered homes and were given a name, a routine and trained. But in the last 20 years the relationship has evolved a lot.
Tell me.
For the vast majority of owners, the dog is one of the family and strong bonds are established. One of the reasons for that unique bond in nature is because we have both evolved in social groups, both humans and wolves.
What does science discover us?
That when the human and his dog look into each other's eyes, they are filled with the same chemicals: warmth, connection, attachment.
When we look into each other's eyes, our pleasure hormones shoot up?
Yes, a Japanese scientist has proven it. Takefumi Kikusui knew that when a mother looks into her eyes with her baby, they both produce oxytocin, the hormone of warmth and happiness. Kikusui gathered 30 friends with dogs, and both dogs and owners had to urinate in a small bottle.
To detect the amount of oxytocin?
Exactly, and then they asked them to interact with their dogs for 30 minutes, petting them, hugging them and looking into their eyes with affection, and they repeated the urine tests.
Surprises?
Yes, owners and dogs who had looked into each other's eyes affectionately had higher doses of oxytocin than those who had exchanged few glances. Among the dogs that maintained more eye contact, the increase in oxytocin was 130%, but the data from the owners was even more surprising.
Tell me.
The increase was 300%. That oxytocin increases so much in both is a good indicator that dogs and humans are becoming closer socially, that both are transmitting warm and positive feelings to each other.
They call them dogs now.
In 1998, Csányi and Miklósi demonstrated the extent to which dogs feel attached to their owners by subjecting them to a psychological test performed on human babies, and they found that separation anxiety was comparable to that observed between mothers and their babies.
That is a very powerful attachment.
Separation anxiety is not a disorder, it is what can be expected in any relationship between two animal companions with cognitive capacity and a close bond.
Although they express it by eating our shoe.
Yes, or defecating at home, barking and even vomiting. Most dogs, when left alone, suffer from anxiety, stress and trauma, and it is worrying.
Are dogs' emotions like ours?
Nothing suggests otherwise. The scientific research that surprised me the most was about ten years ago, when they first looked at how the human brain lit up in an MRI machine and how it reacted when people talked or thought about loved ones.
Was a specific area illuminated?
Yes, the caudate nucleus. A group of US scientists trained dogs living in homes to tolerate resonance and showed them a sausage.
Festival of lights?
The caudate nucleus lit up. Next they were surprised by the appearance of their masters and again the caudate nucleus lit up, the same part that lights up in our brain when we see loved ones.
That's love?
It seems that our brains are emotionally wired in a similar way, and the feelings that we call love in them we can also call that.
Why are you so surprised?
Science has been reluctant to use the term love when talking about animals, but the scientific evidence is very strong. The more freedom we give dogs to express themselves, the more we realize how complex they are.
Does this esteem occur with other mammals?
That's what I want to investigate. Domestic cats also have predictable increases in oxytocin around their humans. And people who have guinea pigs, horses or pigs for company assure that this well-being also manifests itself when they are together.
Better understanding and love than punishment.
It is sobering to discover that the more respect and compassion scientists offer dogs, the more they show what they are capable of. If we turn animals into beasts, they will behave like beasts.
