Do Our Dogs Really Love Us?

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I love my dog more than I love most people in the world. It’s that overwhelming sort of love in your gut that you can’t really articulate. But my dog is also terribly annoying and horribly trained, mostly in regards to food; he will bark incessantly for food (seriously, it doesn’t stop until he gets food, and often he’ll keep barking even after he’s eaten). His barking drives my dad, sister, and myself totally crazy, but my mom consistently makes excuses for his awful behavior, saying things like, “aw, he’s just trying to talk to us” or “but he’s just hungry!”. So of course he’s going to continue barking for food when his barking always results in my mom feeding him (it’s a prime example of classical conditioning).
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This is how my dog looks at you when you’re eating.

And my dog loves my mom the best, you can just tell. When we all walk in the door after dinner or a family vacation, she’s the first he runs to. If we take him on a car ride and she leaves the car for a second to run into the grocery store, he will stare out the window crying until she comes back. But I always wondered, does he truly love her most because he spends the most time with her, going on walks and sitting around the house, or does he love her because she’s the one who most frequently feeds him? Does he love all of us? The type of love that we feel toward him? Or does he just want food?

So I decided to delve into this topic and try to find an actual scientifically proven answer instead of continuing to speculate on my own—I really do hope that my dog truly loves me though, or else my heart will be broken. I first found this Mic article, which discussed a recent study that attempted to find out exactly what I was wondering—do dogs really love us? This study, conducted by researchers at Emory University, measured twelve dogs’ brain responses to various smells, their strongest sense, using fMRIs. They tested five smells: a familiar person (e.g. their owner), an unfamiliar person, a familiar dog, an unfamiliar dog, and itself. The brain scans showed that the dog’s caudate nucleus, an area of the brain associated with reward, experienced increased levels of activity when given the smell of a familiar person. I believe that this shows that dogs have positive associations with their owners, but I’m not sure that it proves that they love us. This could mean that the dogs associate their owner with a reward (i.e. food), and that is why their reward center in the brain is activated with the presence of the familiar person’s smell.

So I kept looking to see if I could find more evidence as to whether dogs really love us or not, and found this article, which used the results of another Emory University study to claim that our dogs do love us.

The study trained fifteen dogs to associate various objects with various outcomes: a pink toy was associated with receiving food, a blue toy with praise from their owner, and a hairbrush (the control) was associated with no reward. The researchers then used fMRIs to determine the brain’s reaction to the sight of the different toys. The results: nine of the fifteen dogs were equally excited by the pink toy (food) as they were with the blue toy (praise), four of the fifteen were more excited by the blue toy (praise), and two of the fifteen were more excited by the pink toy (food).

The researchers then tried to observe the dogs and see whether their behavior would show a preference toward food or praise. The dogs had to navigate their way through a maze and at the end of the maze they could either choose to eat a big bowl of food or go toward their owner. The four dogs who in the fMRI scans showed the most excitement about praise went right toward their owner, the two who showed a preference toward food went right to the food, but the nine who showed equal preference switched between which choice they made, and often seemed distressed about which to choose. I think that this also shows that most dogs do have an attachment toward their owners, but once again it doesn’t show the mechanism—is it because of love or is it because of food and praise?

Unfortunately, it seems as though I still don’t have a clear answer to my question. I will continue to analyze my dog’s every move, thinking that his cuddling up to me in bed is a sign of his affection toward me, but maybe he is just cold. I guess I’ll just have to keep hoping that my dog, although he may love us for giving him food, loves us equally for our companionship.

5 thoughts on “Do Our Dogs Really Love Us?

  1. Stephanie Keyaka

    Hi Rebecca,

    As a long time owner of 3 dogs I can say I relate to you. However, I never really thought to look into the behaviors of my dogs. I always just chalked it up to “they are just dogs being dogs.” With this said however, there’s this really fascinating article detailing the scientific proof that our dogs really love us with all their hearts and ‘nose’ (LOL). In this article it details how much our dogs really view us as their family. Now, nothing is concrete, especially not science, but I think that research is pretty cool. I hope what you found regarding your dog put you at ease. So hopefully next time he barks incessantly you think, “Gosh, I know, you love me so much”

    http://barkpost.com/dogs-love-us-like-family/

  2. Melissa Raquel Fraistat

    Hi,
    I’ve never had a dog, but I always wish I did. Besides the fact that they are cute, the way people talk about their dogs makes me feel so jealous. Anyone who I’ve ever talked to that has a dog makes it seem like they have this special relationship with their dog. I never truly understood how these bonds work, but nevertheless, I was and still am jealous. Your post reminded me of a story my friend told me about how her dog knows when she is about to be taken on a walk when my friend walks to a certain drawer in her house because her dog knows its leash is in there. Your post also reminded me of an article I recently read about how when some dogs had an MRI, their left hemisphere of their brain reacted the most when they heard words like good boy which shows that dogs do in fact appreciate their owners.

  3. Stephanie Keyaka

    Hi Rebecca,

    As a long time owner of 3 dogs I can say I relate to you. However, I never really thought to look into the behaviors of my dogs. I always just chalked it up to “they are just dogs being dogs.” With this said however, there’s this really fascinating article detailing the scientific proof that our dogs really love us with all their hearts and ‘nose’ (LOL). In this article it details how much our dogs really view us as their family. Now, nothing is concrete, especially not science, but I think that research is pretty cool. I hope what you found regarding your dog put you at ease. So hopefully next time he barks incessantly you think, “Gosh, I know, you love me so much”

    http://barkpost.com/dogs-love-us-like-family/

  4. Emily Fiacco Tuite

    Your post is very interesting to me because I have wondered the same thing about my dog. She always seem to want food but at the same time wants attention from me. Or she will make you give her attention so she can get food. The study that you talk about is very intriguing to read because I never know if my dog wants food or attention. Here is an article about questioning if your dog barks for attention. I hope it helps with your dog.

    http://www.canidae.com/blog/2011/07/does-your-dog-bark-to-get-attention/

  5. Katrina Burka

    Hi Rebecca, I thought your post was really well written and entertaining. I too have wondered about this question a lot but more in regards to my cat. I think its really interesting how the pink toy, blue object, and hair brush test were conducted. The praise and the food reward had the same reaction, showing, I think, that the dog really does get excited over you and appreciates your praise as much as food (it also can depend on how hungry the dog already was). Also from Emory University, here is a video of titled “How Dogs Love Us” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVw1zs2X3iA

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