How frequently do you pet your puppy? Look into its adoring eyes. Smiling at it? Hopefully, regularly, because the more you do it, the more they will adore you.
Wild animals benefit more from keeping an eye out for predators than they do from getting all warm and fuzzy when they meet a smiling human. But, your dog is unlike any other animal. When you look affectionately into your dog’s eyes, its levels of oxytocin - the “attachment hormone” - rise.
Researchers were well aware of this but what they did not realize was that extra oxytocin causes canines to choose smiling faces over scary ones, just like we do. This may not seem like much in the human realm, but it's a major thing among animals, who have a better chance of surviving if they can detect threatening indications.
The findings appear to support a virtuous loop of affection between humans and dogs: the kinder you are to your dog, the more love hormone they emit. As a result, they will love you even more - so much so that they may even ignore the threat for your sake.
Dogs display extremely affiliative behavior when they are reunited with their owners, including staring at them, waving their tails, licking their faces, and jumping up. During a reunion with humans, oxytocin levels in dogs rise physiologically.
Unlike other animals, dogs have evolved and have been domesticated through communication with humans and have mastered high-level communication skills using eye contact. Through this process, their tears might play a role in evoking protective behavior or nurturing behavior from their owners, deepening the bonds between them and furthering interspecies bonding.
Love hormone connects both humans and dogs with each other which forms a real chemistry between people and their pups.
