In retrospect, I guess I just knew if I ever got a dog, I would immediately fall in love and my cherished freedom would be gone.
I was, of course, right as I have written before (“For the love of dogs: Defying logic,” Yorkton This Week, January 29, 2015).
The weird thing, though, is that I have not come to resent them as I assumed I would. In fact, what I have done, is significantly adjust my priorities.
I no longer crawl out of bed in the morning, jump in the shower, throw on my clothes and out the door. I get up early, let the dogs in, make coffee and hang out for a while before giving them a chunk of fresh beef bone and letting them back out.
When it’s possible I juggle my work schedule so I can take them out to the off-leash park and weekends, well, everything else revolves around them.
The question is, why? What the hell is it about these remarkable creatures that turn otherwise rational beings into blithering idiots. Seriously, you should hear me talk to my (100-plus pound) “lady bug.” I’ve gone from dogless and happy about it to ‘I don’t know what I would do without her’ in just a few months. It doesn’t even bother me any more when she slobbers all over me, and if you’ve never seen a Newf, believe me, we aren’t talking a little dribble.
Fortunately, those of us who have abdicated our dignity for the love of canines, science is coming to the rescue. According to a recent study, it may not be our fault, it may be biology.
You know when you’re gazing into your canine pal’s eyes and you feel your heart melt? That’s actually the hormone Oxytocin being released into your brain. This is the same chemical responsible for the bonding that takes place between parents and their infants. And guess what, the dog producing the same hormone and loving you right back.
The research, conducted at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, studied the effect of dogs and their owners gazing into each others eyes on oxytocin levels and found after just a few minutes of the activity both male and female dogs experienced an increase of up to 130 per cent, while their owners jumped a whopping 300 per cent.
There are so many remarkable things about this study. Anybody who has ever had a dog cannot be surprised that animals experience emotion. We can see their fear, love, anxiety, boredom etc. But that’s anecdotal, this new research provides further empirical data that animals are emotional. I suspect their capacity for self-reflection is limited, but there is no question in my mind that they feel.
I am also fascinated by the possible evolutionary implications. Dogs are wolves. For categorization purposes, taxonomists have recently designated domestic canines a subspecies, Canis lupus familiaris. Genetically, though, your shitzu, your neighbour’s border collie and my Newfie are the same.
In the same study, the researchers studied wolves and the people who were raising them and noted they never made much eye contact. And some of the dogs and their owners interacted in ways other than looking into each others’ eyes. There was not uptick in Oxytocin in those pairs.
Waht is so incredible is that in order for domestication to take place, some wolves must have co-opted the human-human bonding strategy. Over time, selective breeding has honed that feedback loop into an amazing relationship almost as strong as, and in some cases even stronger than, some of our familial ties.
Obviously, the small number of early wolves who dared try to forge relations with humans must have done so for the advantage of receiving care (food) and protection. What did people get out of it, though?
This is where some speculation in the study comes in. Oxytocin reduces stress and the researchers wonder if health benefits solidified our side of the bond.
Oxytocin may also help explain some other amazing dog traits. There is also another study out of Australia that suggests it helps dogs understand human social cues, such as pointing. It is known that the hormone increases social cognition in humans. The Australian study used Oxytocin administered nasally to test if it would enhance performance and it did.
Try as I might, if I point at something, my cats just stare at my finger, but the dogs get it instinctively. That’s pretty impressive considering even our own closest relatives, the great apes, struggle with that seemingly simple task.
In any event, don’t let anyone try to tell you your dogs don’t love you. They do.
