Ever wondered if your dog knows you love them or even if they love you back? Our understanding of dog cognition has dramatically increased in recent years and we now have a much larger understanding of exactly what is going on in those canine minds. My name is Anai Fonte and with over 13 years of experience in the canine world I’m going to share with you some amazing ways our dogs communicate love with us.
In an article written by Dr. Brain Hare for People he says that the way your dog stares lovingly is their way of hugging you with their eyes. Dr. Brian Hare has dedicated his life to studying canine cognition and its eccentricities. He further writes “Yes, your dog knows how much you love him! Dogs and humans have a very special relationship, where dogs have actually hijacked the human oxytocin bonding pathway that is normally reserved for our babies.”
According to Dr. Gregory Berns, a leading neuroscientist in the field of canine cognition and author of How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain, quoted from the Huffpost Article, “Here’s How Your Dog Really Feels About You, According To Science” by Kate Moriarty, “Studies support the theory that dogs do feel the warm-and-fuzzies for their humans — even more so than for their animal friends. In a study published in ScienceDirect in 2015, Berns and his colleagues presented dogs with the scents of their owner, a human they didn’t know, a familiar dog (usually one that lived in the same home), an unfamiliar dog and the subject dogs’ own scent. They used fMRI technology to monitor the dogs’ brain activity, and they found that of all the scents, only the familiar human scent activated the dogs’ caudate nucleus — the part of the brain that, in humans, becomes activated when we anticipate things we like or enjoy. This suggests that dogs have a positive association with the human scent, and may in fact be experiencing feelings of love as we do.”
So, does your dog really love you?
- Just like human love, it has everything to do with the relationship and individual but all signs point to dogs being capable of love.
- Does your dog just stare at you? That is a canine hug and a sign or adoration or that they need to go poo. You choose.
- Leaders in canine cognition all agree, dogs feel deep emotions.
Just another reason dogs are the most amazing creatures on earth. I’m not crying… you’re crying.
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