You would do anything to stop your pup from whimpering. And according to a new study, your dog may do the same for you.
A paper published this week in the journal Learning & Behavior suggests that dogs don’t simply notice when someone is crying, but that they want to proactively assist, as well.
For the small study, researchers recruited 34 dog-owner pairs in Minnesota. The dogs were a variety of breeds and ages, ranging from 1.5 to 12 years old.
During the experiment, each owner sat in a small room, separated from his or her dog by a lightweight door with a large window. The dog could see the owner and could easily push open the door, which was loosely secured to the frame with magnets.
Half of the owners were instructed to say “help” in a flat, emotionless tone while humming “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” between words. The other half said “help” in a distressed tone while making crying noises between words.
Ultimately, half of the dogs in each group opened the door. But dogs responding to owners who were crying did so much faster—they were by their owners’ sides in an average of 23 seconds, while dogs with humming owners averaged 96 seconds.
Dogs who didn’t open the door in the crying group showed signs of distress such as pacing and whining, suggesting that they may have been too stressed to take action.
“We see higher stress in the dogs that didn't open and reports from the owner that these dogs are just generally more anxious,” says Dr. Julia Meyers-Manor, an assistant professor of psychology at Ripon College and a co-author of the study. “We think the dogs that opened were a little stressed, but not so stressed that they were paralyzed by it.”
So is this finally scientific proof that your dog loves you as much as you love him? That might be taking things a little too far.
“The dogs seem to respond to our human crying and become distressed by it—but the question of love is more complicated," says Meyers-Manor. "Though as a dog-lover myself, I am certain they do love us. What is love if not wanting to be with us and care for us?”
We're counting it.