Dogs Only Do Puppy Eyes For Humans
Share:
Only heartless people can resist giving in to a dog when it gives you that cute, wide-eyed look. They look so hopeful and loving that you just have to give them a little bit of what you’re eating. A new study has shown that dogs don’t naturally do the puppy eyes- they only do that because they know it gets you every time.
The University of Portsmouth’s Dog Cognition Centre has carried out a series of tests to try and learn more about a dog’s facial expressions.
The study looked at 24 dogs of various breeds which were all family pets. A person gave the dog a treat while being attentive and letting the dog know they were paying attention. During these simulations, the dogs changed their facial expressions to be able to communicate with the person. In other exchanges, the person would give the dog a treat while facing away. In these simulations, the dogs hardly changed their faces.
The report explained how dogs know to change their expressions. It mentioned that dogs have lived and worked alongside humans for over 30,000 years and have therefore learned to read our emotions and respond accordingly.
One of the researchers, Dr Juliane Kaminski said:
“This study moves forward what we understand about dog cognition. We now know dogs make more facial expressions when the human is paying attention.”
“We can now be confident that the production of facial expressions made by dogs are dependent on the attention state of their audience and are not just a result of dogs being excited. In our study, they produced far more expressions when someone was watching, but seeing food treats did not have the same effect. The findings appear to support evidence dogs are sensitive to humans’ attention and that expressions are potentially active attempts to communicate, not simple emotional displays.”