the amount of oxytocin,
which is a neural peptide that is created in both the dog and human.
It seems that there is an oxytocin loop between dogs and humans,
where, as a dog makes eye contact with you, oxytocin is being produced in you and
oxytocin is being produced in the dog, and oxytocin is known as the hug hormone.
It's a hormone that drives social behavior in humans and in other non-human animals.
It's the hormone,
for instance, that's related to a mother bonding with infants after birth.
And has been shown to be related to animals who have monogamous bonds,
tend to have a different level of oxytocin and receptivity to oxytocin,
than animals that do not have that same kind of bond.
So, oxytocin between humans and dogs seems to increase
just when we make eye contact and stare at each other.
That's why this again is a really interesting thing to check on
in your dog and another one of the things that you can do as a lab exercise,
if you choose, through Dognition.
And of course, the reason that's
really fun is because not all dogs make the same amount of eye contact.
And so, you can see where your dog falls and
how that relates to the bond that you feel you have with your dog.
The reason that that It seems to be important is there is research showing
that people who tend to report that they have more satisfaction in their
relationship with their dogs,
when they are then measured interacting with their dog, it's people who report
more satisfaction with their dog have dogs that make more eye contact with them.
And when it was measured through their urine,
those people were actually expressing more oxytocin in their urine,
suggesting that the dog that made more eye contact was creating more oxytocin,
making a stronger bond, thus making the people report when you ask them,
that they had greater satisfaction in that relationship.
So dogs are really built for cooperation and bonding.
And this is one of the fun and exciting things of this new research,
is we're understanding where this new bond comes from.
What drives it.