Dogs ‘cry’ of joy when reunited with their loved one, study finds

A new study that may be the first to address this issue has found that dogs also ‘cry’ when they experience happy emotions, especially when they are reunited with their owners, the researchers report in the journal. Current biology.

“We found that dogs they shed tears associated with positive emotions,” explains Takefumi Kikusui from Azabu University (Japan). We also made a discovery oxytocin as a possible underlying mechanism.

Origin of discovery: mother with her puppies

Kikusui and his colleagues made this discovery after one of his two poodles gave birth to puppies 6 years ago. They noticed that when their dog fed the puppies, something changed in the animal’s face, and tears. These tears do not flow, as people usually do, but their eyes fill with tears. tears. “It made me think that oxytocin can increase tearsKikusui says.

oxytocin, he explains, is known as the maternal or “love” hormone. The researchers also knew from previous observations that oxytocin is released in both dogs and their owners during interactions. So they decided to do a reunion experiment and see if it would make the dogs cry.

Tears also make us love them more.

First, they used a standard test to measure the amount of tears in dogs before and after they were reunited with their owners. They found that indeed tear volume increased when they met a famous person not with a person they didn’t know.

when they added oxytocin in the eyes of dogs, its volume tears also increased. This finding supports the idea that the release oxytocin plays a role in the production of tears when dogs and their peers are back together.

They also asked people to rate pictures of faces. dogs with and without artificial tears, and it turned out that people gave more positive feedback when they saw dogs with watery eyes. These results indicate that the production tears dogs helps to forge closer bonds between people and their dogs.

Kikusui claims the results were a surprise. “We have never heard of the discovery that animals shed tears in joyful situations like being reunited with their owners and we were all thrilled that it was a world first,” he says.

In this case, it appears that dogs they cause tears in situations that people would consider “happy”.

They haven’t checked yet if dogs produce tears also in response to negative emotions. They also don’t yet know if dogs produce tears when they hang out with other dogs. They are waiting to see if this reaction also has a social function in the canine world, but for now they say it has clear implications for the bond between dog and human.

” dogs they have become human companions and we can create bonds,” notes Kikusui. In this process, it is possible that dogs that get watery eyes while interacting with the owner care more about him.

Europe Press