As an artist who specializes in pets, my love for animals runs deep, and I have always welcomed them into my life. Whether it's learning about their incredible stories or simply observing them in their natural habitat, I'm endlessly fascinated by the complex behaviors and personalities that make them so unique. Recently, research on dogs has increased with universities establishing canine cognition labs and scientists examining dog's intelligence, behavior, biology, and skills. Today, I would like to share a fascinating fact about dogs that I learned from a recent research article I read.
Dogs are remarkable because they have the ability to love. Clive Wynne, a founder of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, conducted studies to measure a dog's ability to choose between their owner or a bowl of food when separated from both for many hours and found that dogs' and owners' hormonal levels go up when they gaze into each other's eyes. Wynne initially thought dogs were faking affection to get better treats, but his studies and personal experiences with his dog convinced him otherwise. To prevent people from thinking he's treating dogs like humans, he replaces the word "love" with "exceptional gregariousness" and "hyper sociability" in his scientific writing.
In his book "Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You," Wynne explores that dogs' capacity for affection makes them unique, not their intelligence and cognitive skills, which were thought to be what made them special.
Wynne's research also disproves the idea that dogs' intelligence and cognitive skills, developed by living with humans for 15,000 years, are what make dogs exceptional. Wynne and his team conducted a simple task test on wolves, the wild ancestor of dogs, and found that wolves performed similarly to dogs. Therefore, dogs have a rare ability to form affectionate relationships with other species, which sets them apart from other animals and makes them unique.
I hope you`ve learned something new about our beloved dogs today. If you`d like to hear more fun facts about pets - consider subscribing to my youtube channel. I just started to share shorts. :)
If you're interested in learning more fun facts about our beloved pets, feel free to check out my YouTube channel. I have a series of shorts there that I think you'll enjoy!