Dogs cry tears of happiness when reunited with their owners: a study

Man’s best friend sheds more than just hair.

Dogs are torn from joy when they meet their owners – evidence of the strong The emotional bond between humans and their canine companionsAccording to a new study.

dog They have tear ducts that pulsate with happiness in a variety of situations, including seeing their owners for the first time after long periods of absence, According to researchers in Japan.

Takefumi Kikusui, from the lab, said: Interaction between humans and animals And reciprocity at Azabu University, in a statement.

“We’ve also come to discover oxytocin as a possible mechanism behind it,” Kikusui said, referring to the so-called love hormone, which produces warm, fuzzy feelings.

During the study published Monday in the journal current biologyKikusui and his team placed paper strips known as the Schirmer tear test inside the eyelids of 22 dogs.

They then measured the amount of tears the dog produced for one minute before and after they were reunited with their owners after being separated for five to seven hours.

After the owner returned, the researchers said the tears they produced increased by an average of 10%.

By contrast, the researchers did the same with people who were not dog owners and found that dogs’ tears did not increase at all.

To study the role oxytocin plays, researchers put a solution containing the hormone into the animals’ eyes and found that the number of tears increased dramatically after the fluid was added, according to the study.

Kikusui said he was inspired to investigate the cause of Fidos’ emo eyeballs after seeing one of his poodles crying while breastfeeding her dogs six years ago.

The researchers said they still don’t know if dogs, like humans, explode out of negative emotions. And they don’t know if dog tears serve a social function in the canine world.

But Kikusui said the study shows that “dogs are becoming partners with humans.”