Dogs Can Cry With Joy Almost Like Humans, Study Says

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The study also revealed that teary-eyed dogs seem to be rated more positively by human observers as compared to dogs with no tears in their eyes.
A new study conducted by researchers in Japan suggests that dogs can cry tears of joy when reunited with their owners.
According to Gizmodo, this canine behavior is apparently affected by the hormone oxytocin that plays a role in bonding in humans and dogs alike, and which is also released during childbirth to stimulate labor.
The author of the study, Takefumi Kikusui, decided to investigate this hypothesis after noticing how one of his poodles had eyes filled with tears and appeared cuter as she was nursing her recently born puppies.
As previous studies have already established that dogs can possess human-like social skills, and with Kikusui’s own team’s earlier work suggesting that humans and dogs produce more oxytocin when spending time with one another, the researcher came up with the idea that “oxytocin might increase tears,” the media outlet notes.
“We previously observed that oxytocin is released both in dogs and owners when interacting. So we conducted a reunion experiment,” Kikusui explained in an email to Gizmodo.
The researchers’ findings suggest that, as Kikusui himself put it, “dogs shed tears associated with positive emotions, such as a reunion with the owner,” with oxytocin likely being responsible for this tear secretion.
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The team also observed that when human volunteers were shown photos of dogs with or without artificial tears in their eyes and were asked to decide whether they felt positively or negatively about the canines, the dogs who had more tears in their eyes were rated more positively on average.
“We found that teary eyes of dogs can facilitate human caregiving. Dogs have become a partner of humans, and we can form bonds,” Kikusui said, as quoted by the media outlet. “In this process, it is possible that the dogs that show teary eyes during interaction with the owner would be cared for by the owner more.”
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