What explains the dog-human love affair?

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Wolves are wild, powerful, and fearsome predators, capable of bringing down even large prey. And yet, tens of thousands of years ago, some wolves started forming close associations with humans. They became more docile. Their bodies changed. They turned into domestic dogs. Today, we share bonds with them that can be as strong as those that tie us to other people. How did this happen? How did we go from fear to friendship? How did dogs start inspiring such genuine feelings of love and affection?

Miho Nagasawa at Azabu University, Japan has a possible answer. It involves oxytocin, a mammalian hormone that draws our attention to social cues. In another post, I described mouse experiments which show how oxytocin sensitises an inexperienced mother to the distress calls of her pups, and eventually cements the bond between them. Dogs seem to have hijacked this chemical connection between mother and child, to cement a similarly strong bond with their owners.

Nagasawa showed that a dog’s gaze raises the oxytocin levels in its owner, prompting more social contact. In return, the owner’s gaze raises oxytocin levels in the pooch. This chemical loop unites the brains of two different species. “[It’s] a powerful mechanism through which dogs win our hearts—and we win theirs in return,” write Evan MacLean and Brian Hare from Duke University, in an accompanying editorial.

Read full, original article: Through This Chemical Loop, Dogs Win Our Hearts

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