Those of you who have a dog or have had one throughout your life will have noticed that on certain occasions your dog would look at you in a special way, wanting to talk to you.
And you must have often wondered, what does my dog want to tell me when he looks at me like that? Is he hungry? Is he in pain? Endless questions of this type to find the answer to why your dogs look at you with that little face.
However, a study conducted by the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom indicates that there is a reason why dogs make puppy eyes at humans. In the study, they call these innocent and endearing expressions "puppy dog eyes," which are capable of persuading anyone.
In the study, they affirm that after more than 33,000 years of coexisting with humans, dogs have evolved their anatomical characteristics and developed cognitive abilities to communicate.
Therefore, they conclude that dogs are capable of gesturing and arching their eyebrows to interact with people.
The difference between the wolf and the dog
The wolf is the animal from which the dog descended, yet it is not capable of gesturing like them. In the study, they found that "dogs produce a more significant and intense eyebrow movement than wolves."
They arrived at this explanation by conducting a study based on dissected heads of dogs and wolves. They realized that the internal elevated angle of the eye, that is, the muscle responsible for intensely raising the eyebrow, was much more present in dogs than in wolves.
“This movement increases licentiousness and resembles the expression humans make when they are sad,” the study explains.
They also conducted behavioral studies with 27 dogs and 9 wolves, in which they observed that almost all the dogs investigated possessed a muscle not present in wolves.
“The findings suggest that expressive eyebrows in dogs may be the result of unconscious human preferences that influenced selection during domestication. When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to care for them. This would give dogs who move their eyebrows more a selection advantage over others and reinforce the ‘puppy dog eyes’ trait for future generations,” comments Juliane Kamiski, a psychologist at the University.
Eye contact between dog and man
The study indicates that dogs make this eye contact when they face a problem they cannot solve. In this way, they want to receive an enriching response from their owner.
This facial interaction between man and dog has played a fundamental role in the bond created between owner and dog.
"The dogs' expressive eyebrows are the result of selection based on human preferences," the study concludes.
So, dogs make puppy eyes at their owners to get something they can't. It is their way of communicating, creating a strong and loyal bond between dog and man. "An oxytocin feedback loop occurs between humans and dogs, similar to that between a mother and her children."
What do you think your dog is trying to tell you when they make puppy eyes? Tell us on social media.