Haven’t you heard about people looking like their dogs? Well, this has been a rumor for a very long time, but now science has reached scientific evidence on this. The bond between dogs and humans goes beyond affection or living together, it’s a deeper relationship that can result in physical and personality resemblances.
In this article you will find the most recent findings on this popular known bond, leading us to think the relationship between dogs and humans is more similar to the one between humans than we think.
People resembling their dogs
Rumor has it humans look like their dogs, I’m sure you have heard about this even though you don’t have a dog. This idea has always been said in a humorous way, but it has now been scientifically proven. So, people and their dogs can resemble, physically, personality and behavior wise.
A deeper relationship than we think
The bond between people and their dogs is not just feeding these animals, playing with them and giving them a place to live. Apart from all of this, dogs become another member of people’s families, the bond can be so strong that when the dog passes away the person, who accompanied it throughout its whole life, suffers from a deep mourning.
According to Renata Roma, a clinician and researcher specializing in human-animal interactions, understanding similarities between people and dogs could help us comprehend in a better way the bond’ quality between them. The way someone perceives their dog, and vice versa, influences the cohabitation and their relationship.
Scientific studies on this
15 scientific studies have been recently analyzed to try to reach a clear answer for this rumor. This analysis shows some people and their dogs share similar personality characteristics, like the level of extroversion, anxiety and sociability. This might be an explanation on why people choose dogs with a similar behaviour to them or maybe it is because the cohabitation makes dogs develop a similar behavior to humans.
What’s more, it was also found many people choose their dogs that look like them, we don’t know whether they do it consciously or not. Let’s see some examples:
- People with long hair tend to choose dog breeds with long ears.
- Women with short hair prefer dog breeds with short ears.
- Coincidences are even more noticeable in pure dog breeds.
Who notices this?
This resemblance is normally noticed by the subjective perception of the dog’s owner, but to make this point clear a research was done: a group of people who had never seen the dogs nor their owners, was shown pictures of them in a separate way and they were asked to match the pictures according to physical similarities.
What happened? Most People got the pairs right which means the relationship between dogs and their owners can be noticeable by a different person outside their relationship.
The reason behind the resemblance
Human evolution is the best answer to this dog-human resemblance. Throughout history people have always bonded with other people who shared the same values, behavior and even appearance, in order to improve the chances to survive. This is what’s done now when people choose their dogs, they unconsciously look for the ones that they feel a kind of connection, physically or personality wise.
Another factor is shared learning. This is when an anxious dog can make their owner become very anxious too, or when a quiet person reinforces calm behavior of her dog and it becomes a quiet dog.
The important thing is that when you choose your future dog, you don’t look for one that looks like you in any way because the important thing is that you create a lovely bond with who will be your companion for a long time.
Are you interested in these animals? Well, then maybe you will like to read more articles about about them. I encourage you to do it!