Does your dog really love you and is he really your best friend or is it the food he really wants? There are common and fundamental questions about those furry ones that many of us put on the short list of our best friends.
For decades we have been curious and have started researching what animals in general think, feel and know… dogs too, of course.
our furry friends may be brighter than we think, but the truth is that we also reinterpret, or rather misinterpret, some of their behaviors.
Do you want to know what your dog knows, thinks and feels? So, read on…
Does he really love you or is it interest?
Let’s start with what we’d least like to know, although just by observing our dog we can confirm: Our furry friends are a bit of a liar.
They don’t lie to us directly, but they are willing to act crazy and someone will feed them, especially if it’s something they really like. No matter how much they have eaten before, they will pretend to be fiercely hungry. A white lie?
Possibly. Let’s just say that our dog’s love is elevated to the maximum power if something delicious is involved.
But does the fact that they can be a bit of a liar or manipulator mean that they don’t really love you? Let’s see, the doubt is normal: does he really love me or what he really wants is the food?
Well, the truth is that, like people, not all dogs are the same. So the answer is somewhat relative, it will depend on your dog. What has been demonstrated is that, although rich food moves them a lot, the truth is that they do feel something when they see and smell their owners.
Dogs’ sense of smell
It is popularly known that the sense of smell is the most developed sense in dogs. So it is not surprising that many studies start there.
Well, some of these studies show that dogs have a positive association with human odor.
When smelling its owner, a dog experiences an increase in the hormone oxytocin.
But it goes much further, this study, which was based on making dogs listen to positive and negative sounds from other dogs and humans, has revealed that dogs are as susceptible to emotional contagion with humans as with other animals of the same species. Impressive!
Those of us who love and have a dog somehow knew it, since we can appreciate it on a daily basis, but now science has confirmed it: dogs recognize the different valences of emotional sounds. So much so that there is evidence that dogs understand the words and intonation of the human voice. They may not understand exactly the message, but they do sense what we are saying and whether the tone is good or bad.
