study confirmed
Japanese researchers find that dogs cry with joy when they see their owners again
Dogs can cry – this research sheds a whole new light on our four-legged friends
© IMAGO / Westend61
When dogs are happy, the sun usually rises for their owners. The four-legged friend usually reflects unconditional love and happiness when he meets his master again. Researchers have now found that dogs cry when they are happy.
It’s not just people who cry out of joy when they see each other again – even dogs bring tears to their eyes. This is the conclusion of scientists from Japan in a study published on Monday in the journal “Current Biology”.
The researchers measured tears in dogs using the Schirmer test, also used in humans, in which a test strip made of filter paper is placed in the lower conjunctival sac. The base value was taken as the production of tears when a dog interacts normally with its owner.
Dogs cry with happiness
When dogs saw their master or mistress again after a separation of between five and seven hours, a significantly increased tear production was measured. The amount of tears produced was also higher than when a dog saw a familiar human who was not the owner. According to the researchers, the increased tear production is likely to be related to the hormone oxytocin, which is also known as the love hormone.
“We had never heard of the discovery that animals shed tears in joyful situations, such as reuniting with their owners,” said study co-author Takefumi Kikusui. It is possibly the first study of this type in the world.
The scientists also examined whether tears in dog eyes have an emotional effect on owners. They therefore presented dog owners with photos of their animals with and without artificial tears and asked them to sort them according to how much they wanted to take care of their dogs. The dog photos with artificial tears ended up well ahead of the photos without artificial tears.
The study authors point out that human babies cry when they’re feeling down – leading parents to care more about them at that moment.